Land of the Living
by T.R. Samuels
Summary: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".
1. Chapter 1

**NOTES**: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.

**SUMMARY**: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".

**DISCLAIMER**: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

* * *

**"****Land of the Living"  
Chapter 1  
T.R. Samuels**

The wheel of the Jeep Liberty splashed through a waterlogged pothole as it trundled down the serpentine road of asphalt known as Glacier Peak Highway. The vehicle snaked a path forged by nature as the road twisted and turned, over and around moss-covered rock formations and through a dark forest of cedar, spruce, and Douglas-fir, finding the path of least resistance like the flow of a river. Water sprayed across headlights as windshield wipers metronomed against the rain, the old workhorse of an off-roader heading east into Snohomish County and the wilderness heart of Washington.

John Connor brushed a Dorito shard off the front of his jacket as he awoke in the front passenger seat, his sight a blur of moving images, ears filled with the whir of the wipers and the dull rumble of the engine as he tried to remember where he was.

The memories poured in and he smiled.

He stretched the stiffness in his limbs in what little room was afforded in his cramped corner of the vehicle. "How long was I out?" he grumbled sleepily.

Next to him in the driver's seat, Cameron glanced at over at her husband, a little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth at the sight of his dishevelment as she put her eyes back on the darkened road. "About an hour and a half."

_Not bad,_ he nodded with satisfaction. They should be home soon. He made a yawn and groaned, muscles needling as he straightened his arms and felt blood burn back into stiffened limbs.

"_Shhh…"_ Cameron silenced him with a finger to her mouth and motioned with a thumb onto the back seat. John turned and looked.

Wrapped in a tartan quilt like a cigarillo was their five-year-old daughter Sarah, tuckered out and dead to the world, looking like a slumbering angel in her cosy alcove as her hands clasped the rim of the makeshift blanket. John made a warm smile as his heartstrings were tugged – an indulgence he savoured in the calm before the storm when their little bundle of joy would finally awaken – like some mythical leviathan no mortal fool would disturb, least they rouse a fearsome and obstinate creature that knew no meaning of the words _"go back to bed", "wash your ears"_ or _"do your homework"_.

Sarah could be quite a handful sometimes, though John was relieved to say that she certainly wasn't a wayward child. She was a good girl – but bored easily and had the energy of ten children. A day spent with Sarah was an Olympic exercise and John certainly felt fitter for it. If she was asleep so soundly now then she must be exhausted. She'd had a big week.

For the last six days the Connors had been on a camping trip up in the mountains, far from their hometown of _Redwood_ and what felt like a million light-years from the deafening bustle and crush of humanity that they remembered of Los Angeles. It had been years since they'd been to a city, and in that time of peaceful seclusion, John had gotten back to nature. Their study at home was full of nature books and guides for outdoorsmanship, the rear of the garage a woodsman's paradise and their TiVo regularly populated by the likes of Ray Mears.

Cameron supposed that it all appealed to John's survivalist nature, or because the forested wilderness of Washington State was poles apart from the Mexican desert he'd grown up in. She'd known for some time that John had a primeval, masculine drive to test himself and she was glad it had become something the whole family could share. A spell away from their daily lives was a welcome break and it had afforded them the time and opportunity to give Sarah her first lessons in survival and self-sufficiency that even now, years since their last encounter with Skynet, both of them still lived by.

Sarah had learnt how to make fire, use a cutting tool, even a few basics in marksmanship. John had showed her where to find water and food, how to tell what was safe to eat and what wasn't, shown her some simple tricks of navigation. It may have been a lot for an ordinary child to take in, but little Sarah was no slouch – not if her grades were anything to go by. What was most important though was that she had been exposed to the world beyond the human one, the wilderness that dwarfed the urban jungles, giving her a feel for what was out there and how knowledge and preparation were the keys to staying alive.

John glanced to his right as the Jeeps' headlights illuminated a passing road sign. _Redwood_ – _10 miles. _

_Home sweet home._

He was looking forward to sleeping in his own bed again. A week in a tent in the great outdoors did wonders for his mind and spirit, but nothing for his back. Not to mention the awkward fact that there were other things he and Cameron liked to do in bed that were simply impossible when sharing a tent with one's five-year-old.

After a few more miles the rain had subsided and Cameron pulled the jeep onto the forecourt of a lone gas station, sliding the vehicle in next to the old-fashioned pumps of the service outpost in the middle of nowhere that had seemingly been there since time began. Apart from the small convenience and hardware store that contained the counter, the rear of the station was a horseshoe motel with a couple of out-of-state cars parked outside the rooms of their respective owners. The proprietor lived somewhere out back, in what John remembered from their previous visit as a weathered timber dwelling in the middle of an old farmyard that had long since had its day, where moss and undergrowth reigned supreme and turn-of-the-century tractors went to die.

Cameron pumped gas and topped up the tank – it would save them doing it tomorrow when their agenda was packed to the brim. John made his way over to the light of the store, remembering fondly all their previous pit stops at this rustic establishment. This sure was an old-fashioned place. In the daytime, the kid gas jockey would have beat them to the pump and done it for them. Washed the windshield too. John liked its style and had had a good chuckle when Cameron nearly wrestled the kid to the ground for the pump nozzle when they stopped here the first time before moving to _Redwood_, the etiquette of a by-gone era an alien custom to her.

The bell jingled as he crossed the threshold and took in the store's bucolic charm. "Ah, Mr. Connor. Nice to see you again." The owner said from a rocking chair behind the counter.

His name was Vladimir Kamarov. He and his fearsome wife had moved here after escaping the Soviet Union and had run this place since the coal mines dried up in the 80s. They were quite the closet survivalists and had come to _Redwood_ to escape what had once seemed to them as the inevitable outbreak of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War. The irony that he and Cameron had moved here for similar reasons wasn't lost on John.

Aside from that, he didn't know a huge amount about him – other than that his estranged brother was a sailor in the Russian Navy.

The old-timer lay his novel down flat on the page he was reading and groaned his bulk to its feet. "How was the vacation?"

"Great, thanks. There's nothing like the country we have up here. Managed to get some real peace and quiet." Compared to Los Angeles, _Redwood_ was _all_ piece and quite, but after what was now almost five years his definitions and perceptions had changed considerably. He didn't think he'd last five minutes anymore in the deafening cacophony of downtown LA.

John picked up a faded packet of wicked-strength Bombay mix and plonked it down on the countertop. "And the gas, please."

Vladimir tabulated on the old-style register that looked like it had the processing power of an abacus, the mechanics clunking within before it pinged up the total and regurgitated the cash drawer like a tongue. John handed over some crisp banknotes and tore open the packet as he waited for his change. He'd had nothing but wild food and toasted marshmallows for a week and the taste buds that had cut their teeth on Mexican cuisine needed a hit of something spicy.

"See any bears while you were up there?"

"No, unfortunately. We found some prints and spoor, but didn't see any of them."

Vlad huffed. "Count yourselves lucky then."

"Why's that?"

"I take it you haven't heard the news about the man-eater then?"

Johns' eyebrows made for his hairline. "Someone's been killed by a bear?"

"_Three_ have been killed. A logger and a couple of hikers over the last week. Papers say they were torn to bloody rags. You best give the sheriff a call when you get home; they've probably been worried about you guys. Especially having the little one with you."

John had the uncanny feeling of having dodged a bullet, something he hadn't thought about for a long time – then he smiled at the thought of a bear trying to get past Cameron. She wouldn't let the wind blow the wrong way on little Sarah, and woe betide the creature that stumbled into their camp looking for diner.

Suddenly, from the back of the store, what sounded like an oncoming freight train barged inside and made a beeline for Vladimir like a laser guided missile. John's heart skipped a beat, half expecting a grizzly. His mouth burned with the spicy mixture and his hand was halfway to the nearest improvised weapon when Vladimir's wife Ulga emerged from the service door, looking like thunder and piercing her husband with a glare that _Perseus_ would only face with the inside of a shield.

"If you think I'm washing that _fucking_ mess you've made you've got another _fucking_ thing coming, Kamarov!"

From somewhere braver than John had ever known, Vladimir's spine straightened and he hauled a hot coal of defiance from somewhere inside him. "I'll leave whatever mess I want in my own house, you hateful witch!"

"Not when _I'm_ living with you, you won't!"

"Do you mind? I'm trying to work here!"

She scoffed incredulously. "You don't know the meaning of the word!"

"And _you_ do you bone-idle bitch?"

Ulga turned to a paling John and looked him in the eye. John turned to stone. "Ha! Spends most of his damn time sitting on the toilet!"

"Ulga! Leave the customer alone!"

"If he worked half as hard as his bowels we'd be millionaires!"

As the ensuing battle of indomitable will continued in machinegun Russian, John struggled to restrain a growing chortle, focussing on something non-descript as he waited patiently for his change and his shoulders began doing an impression of a workman digging the road with a jackhammer.

With some choice words and a slam of the door, Ulga vanished the way she had came and Vladimir took a soothing breath, leaning hard on the edge of the counter like he'd just fended off a shoplifter wielding an Uzi.

"Take my advice son," He exhaled, handing over John's change. "_Never_ get married."

John smiled through any embarrassment, unrepentant as he pocketed the coins. "You're about five years too late for that." The bell jingled again as he opened the door to the night. "Take it easy, Vlad."

####

After getting back in the jeep, the Connors drove another three miles in comfortable silence, letting Sarah sleep despite John's growing concern that she would be too amply rested and be up at the break of dawn tomorrow morning. That exhausting possibility and several others were still playing on his mind as he ferreted in the centre compartment, searching in vane for a boiled sweet or some chewing gum, when he felt his seatbelt tighten across his chest and the tug of inertia as Cameron applied the breaks, bringing the vehicle to a rolling halt.

"John…" The wariness in her voice rousted him from his search and he followed her gaze onto the road ahead.

Looming out of the darkness was a sight that immediately put John on edge, the cliché scenes of a hundred horror movie scenarios playing out in his mind's eye as he surveyed the scene of ominous destruction that rolled out of the darkness to greet them less than seven miles from home.

He set his jaw with displeasure. "Ah crap…"

About thirty yards ahead of them in the opposite lane was the smashed wreckage of an SUV, its rear length blocking half the highway and its crumpled nose buried into the trunk of a tree. The driver side door hung wide open and glittering granules of glass spilled out across the road, reflecting the light from their own vehicle like jewels. John leaned forward as he noticed something lying amongst the debris on the black tarmac and his wealth of firearm knowledge kicked in when he recognised it; a pump-action shotgun, Remington 11-87; spent florescent shell casings littering the ground around it, looked like double-ought buck.

"Well…" John reached into the glove compartment. "This can't be good."

He pulled out a long flashlight and opened his door.

"Where are you going?" Cameron looked at him like he was insane.

"Someone might be hurt. I'm gonna check it out."

"I'll go. _You_ stay here."

He suddenly felt nostalgic, a wave of memory and associate feeling from when Cameron was first and foremost his absolute protector.

"To be honest, I'd rather you stay. Keep Sarah safe." They both looked on the peaceful form of their sleeping child before John opened the door all the way, feeling the cold night air wrap around him like a wraith. "Open the back."

Cameron reached over and unlocked the rear compartment as John stepped out and moved around to the back of the jeep. He opened the liftgate and began rummaging inside. Their cargo was a neatly stowed array of camping gear and supplies, loaded with Cameron's optimal efficiency, leaving the least amount of idle space that was physically possible.

John might have been the chess grandmaster, but Cameron reigned supreme at Tetris.

Reaching between the folded down tent kit and a pair of rucksacks, John pulled out a Remington 700 hunting rifle, sliding open the bolt-action chamber and fed the weapon with a round from a secure strongbox of ammunition. He slid the oiled metal closed as quietly as he could and pulled the liftgate down to rest on its catch, not wanting to disturb Sarah, before he stepped out and made his way over towards the crash.

The vehicle was a write-off if ever there was one. Coolant and gas pissed out beneath from a ruptured main, running down the slope of the road in the opposite direction. The windshield was a craggy mirror, the passenger door window granulated across the road and the hood and engine block caved in around the massive trunk of a soaring Douglas-fir that, as far as John could determine, seemed utterly unmoved or affected.

Nature had won this round.

John poked his head inside the cab, looking around the empty compartment, senses wired to detect the tell-tale signs that would spin the yarn of what happened here; a hastily packed suitcase on the back seat, clothing trapped between the lid; a half-empty box of shotgun shells on the passenger seat and some .38 specials; a bottle of Wild Turkey lying in the footwell, its precious cargo soaked into the carpet.

There was no sign of the driver.

John moved around the other side of the vehicle and clicked the flashlight on, shining it over the dark side of the accident that remained in shadow beyond the jeeps' headlights.

He saw blood.

A smudged handprint of crimson red was smeared over the passenger side door. He followed the trail with the beam and shone it onto the broken undergrowth that fell away into the steep slope of a shallow valley that led down towards the river, hearing the roaring flow somewhere in the distance at the bottom of the black abyss. The light struggled to penetrate the dark, the bank rolling down on a suicidal incline and drenched by the rain into mud. There was no way he could follow.

He pictured the scenario of some drunken fool joyriding out here at a night, maybe kicked out by his girlfriend and had to pack in a hurry, finding his way up here and losing it on the bend. If he was injured he could have stumbled out and fallen ass-backwards down the slope a hundred feet to the bottom, dead in a ditch somewhere or if not, soon to be. There wasn't a hell of a lot he could do about it, having no idea where the driver was and it would be no good getting himself into trouble in the dead of night.

He armpitted the rifle and made his way back.

As he passed them by, he gave the fallen shotgun and spent shells an uncomfortable glance – the one oddity of the situation that didn't fit into any of his scenarios. It looked like the driver had got off a dozen rounds or so. Double-ought too. Big game gauge. It didn't make sense. He'd lived here for years now and found it hard to believe that this might have anything to do with a bear attack, no matter what Vlad told him the papers we saying.

He slid his arm through the rifle strap and swung it over his shoulder, making his way back to the jeep. When he got there he leaned on the ledge of the passenger window as the whir of its electrical motor swallowed it into the door. Cameron looked across at him, a look of curiosity only he could read.

"No driver and not much sign. There's a blood trail leading down the slope. Not safe enough to follow though."

"We can tell the sheriff when we get in," She lifted the phone that was flipped open in her hand. "There's no reception up here until we reach the edge of town."

He nodded in agreement. "Alright. I don't think we can…"

John bolted as he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. His arm made to swing around for the rifle as an adrenaline surge he hadn't felt in ages flooded through his veins, preparing him to fight.

Then, just as quickly, it was gone.

He took a breath and almost laughed, feeling his cheeks colour as he looked at his daughter.

In the dark pane of the rear passenger window was the silhouette of Sarah, her nose pressed against the glass, face just barely visible, her breath a triangle of condensation and her little eyes like a pair of black stones watching him from the dark. In the blackness that surrounded them it looked like a reflection of something crouched behind him in the forest.

"You little _monkey!_ How long have you been awake?"

Her mouth curled up in a big grin. "Not long."

Cameron hid a smile as John put his hands on his hips and scrunched his mouth and brow in annoyance. "Well sit down and put your seatbelt on. We're moving on now." He went to the back of the jeep and began stowing away the rifle, feeling the obligatory shake in his hands as the adrenaline broke down in his system.

"He was shooting that way…"

John glanced up as he unbolted the rifle and stowed it back where he had got it, tossing the bullet back in the ammo case and locked it up tight. "Who was, sweetheart?"

"The man."

She pointed up the hillside above their car, away from the crash, where the forest towered over them on the high ground and the undergrowth and treetops swayed in the wind, the trunks and branches creaking and swaying like the distant rumble of the ocean. It sounded like breathing. The trees the alveoli of the great organism of the forest.

John looked up and scanned the tree line, his eyes and imagination making shape and sense out of form and shadow. At the periphery of his vision he saw an old man grinning, but when he turned and shone the light it was just the random shape of some branches that looked vaguely human. There was nothing there, but cold still ran down his spine with the uncomfortable feeling they were being watched.

The old woods around these parts had a way like that about them.

The area they were travelling through was a place known as Coalman's Barrow, an area that had a sordid and unfortunate history stretching back over a hundred years. Tales around the campfire of mountain men, cannibalism, and all humanity lost in a frigid winter of the 1870 that saw a party of miners and lumber workers stranded for months without provisions. Nothing to eat and no where to go as their fear and starvation destroyed them. The rest, as they say, was history.

"Come on," John heaved the liftgate shut and got back in the jeep, the door slam behind him like a portcullis, protecting him from his phantom pursuers and the demons of his past that no longer chased him. "Let's go home."

Cameron turned the ignition and pulled their away into the night, around the aggregate of glass and shotgun shells as best she could until the red of the jeep's taillights shrank into the distance.

####

The Connors arrived home around midnight, pulling onto their driveway in the manicured cul-de-sac known as Glacier Court. The neighbours' lights were all out, save for porch lamps and what little street lighting was permitted under _Redwood's_ vehement beautification regulations. John had never found them particularly oppressive, it made the stars at night all the brighter – but there were times when he wondered what would happen if he dare put a plastic flamingo on the lawn.

Cameron would probably put a bullet through it. Since becoming a wife and mother she had nested quite strongly in their new home and things that clashed with her sense of order and establishment didn't last long under her vigilance.

They had called the sheriff's department upon entering town, getting one of his subordinates named Joe Dawg – a most unfortunate happenstance considering he was a deputy. John had tried to keep the grin from his voice as he recounted their discovery on the road and confirmed that they were perfectly alright after their week away. As it turned out, the sheriff _had_ been worried, and the news they were home safe would certainly sooth the lawman's concern the following morning.

John took a moment as he opened his door and smiled quietly to himself. _Home sweet home._ He always got the same feeling when pulling up to it. A welcoming warmth and sanctuary. A homecoming. Contentment and familiarity. Their two stories of idyllic suburbia off a winding country road just a quarter of a mile from town. Only a half dozen neighbours, not a bad egg amongst them, and many with kids of their own.

The rain had stopped now and as they got out of the jeep John's nose filled with the sweet smell of freshly mowed lawns and honeysuckle, tasting wood bark and pine needles on the air, everything fresh and rejuvenated by the downpour and washed clean for the coming day. He just hoped it held off for tomorrow.

Sarah had gone back to sleep again and John endeavoured not to wake her as he unbuckled her seatbelt and scooped her into his arms. Her little frame hugged against him, arms finding their way around her father's neck as she rested her head on his shoulder. He dug out his keys as he held her with one arm and opened the front door, the bristles of the draft excluder brushing over a pile of mail demanding payment for one thing or another. He stepped over them and made his way up the stairs, intent on wasting no more time in finally putting his daughter to bed so that she could get a good night's sleep.

Sarah's room was at the back of the house overlooking the garden – a generous rectangle of emerald grass that backed onto the edge of the woods. Coloured sports balls and a go-cart littered the lawn and a sand pit and swing set dominated the far end, beyond which lay the vast darkness of forest that surrounded _Redwood_ in all directions.

He excavated Sarah's bed from beneath a mountain of cuddly animals and pulled back the covers, slipping the unconscious girl down onto the mattress as she stubbornly clung to him. He reached up and un-knit her hands, like he was unclasping a necklace. Her grip could be like a vice sometimes and she didn't know her own strength. Eventually he was free and he pulled the covers over her, tucking her in and deciding not to bother with her pyjamas. He kissed her cheek and slipped out, staying as quiet as he could as he snuck down the stairs and went to help Cameron unpack.

"Is she asleep?" She asked, carrying two rucksacks of heavy camping gear in each hand and depositing them at the back of the garage.

"Yeah, thank God. You need any help with this stuff?"

Cameron was touched. John was so chivalrous sometimes when it came to the household chores. "I'm fine. Go and get ready for bed. I'll be there in a few minutes."

He was about to object when she scooped up the cast-iron camping stove, the rear suspension of the jeep groaning up off the axle some visible inches as she turned and made her way with it into the garage.

"Okay…" He knew that his help wasn't necessary, but felt like a dog all the same. That and just a little turned on at the way Cameron's backside flexed against her jeans as she knelt down to place the stove on the floor. It'd been a _long_ week sharing that tent.

"I'll… err… get ready for bed then."

As John reached the top of the stairs again he was about to head into the bathroom and start his nightly ablutions when the crack of light emanating from Sarah's bedroom drew his attention. He peered inside, wondering if something was wrong or that she needed him for anything, then immediately felt torn between utter indignation and disbelief.

Sarah was wide awake and bouncing up and down on her bed like it was a trampoline, reaching for the ceiling and getting closer with each jump. He dug his fists into his hips and he glared at her.

"Sarah Kylie Connor! I thought you were asleep?"

Sarah froze like she'd just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, the look of innocence quickly overridden by an air of cheekiness as she tried and failed miserably to keep the grin from her face. "I was. I'm awake now."

"That was less than two minutes ago!"

"I know."

John's eye narrowed and he advanced on her, ready to give her the fireman's lift if she resisted. "Well then, since you're wide awake, you can come and brush your teeth and have a wash."

Sarah gave him a look then as if he'd just given her the death penalty.

"_Now_ young lady." He affirmed, pointing out of the door and across the landing.

Her shoulders slumped and she dismounted the bed as slowly as possible. John stood firm, watching her every move. Sarah could be as stubborn as a mule – getting her to eat fruit or vegetables was like pushing a piano up a fire escape – but he secretly liked that about her. She was his little Resistance soldier, ever ready to give the system a war of attrition. Eventually though, he saw defeat hunch her over and she trudged past him down the green mile on her way to the gallows.

"Drama queen."

They made their way into the bathroom and Sarah clambered up onto her footstool so she could reach the sink. John took out her pink toothbrush and deposited a pea-sized droplet of Colgate on the bristles, handing it to her as he reached for his own. Sarah took it and began brushing, running it in the most cursory sweep possible over her teeth.

"Keep going…" He insisted over his brush.

If it was even possible at this point, Sarah slumped a little further and he finally saw the scales tip. She was too tired now and knew he was watching, the futility of continued resistance obvious and she finally relented, giving her gums and teeth a good two-minute work over.

"Well done," He said as he rinsed out the sink and clicked in the plug, twisting on the hot and dropped her facecloth in the rising water. "Now hold still while I wash your ugly mug."

Her mouth puckered at the frivolous insult as John wrung out the excess from the steaming cloth and started rubbing it over her face. Sarah's expression scrunched up as he worked it over her cheeks and forehead, down the ridge of her little nose, fetching off a film of undetectable grime to reveal silky, rosy skin underneath. He moved around to her ears, a particular bête noire she found especially objectionable and tried to wriggle out of his grasp. John held her tight until he was finished.

"Oh my gosh!"

"What?"

"Look!" He pointed in the mirror and she looked. "I found a beautiful little girl!"

Her mouth dropped open and she looked at him like he'd just dealt her the most grievous of offences before he scooped her off her feet, throwing her over his shoulder and carried her back to her room. She squealed and giggled, legs kicking forward as she slapped his back with her hands until John returned to her room and flopped her down on her bed.

He changed her into her flannel pyjamas and got her tucked in, her arms reaching for her favourite teddy bear and held it tight as he wrapped her in the bedclothes, shoving the edges under the mattress and cocooning her in the feather-stuffed blanket.

"Get plenty of sleep because we've got another big day tomorrow. It's Sunday too, so no waking mommy and me at half six in the morning."

"What's happening tomorrow?"

"It's the big town festival. Everyone will be there."

"_Everyone_? Will Charlie be there?"

"Which one's Charlie?"

"A friend."

John raised an eyebrow. "_Oh?_ 'A friend' is he?"

"Yes."

"_Boy-_friend_?_"

"NO!"

The plot thickened and he started to snigger, the look on her face priceless as he began to sing. "Sarah and Charlie sitting in a tree…"

She pulled the covers over her head. "Boys have cooties! You get them if they kiss you!"

"Does that mean daddies have cooties too?"

She narrowed her eyes the way her mother did sometimes. "Maybe…"

John bowed his head in mock sadness. "So daddy doesn't get a goodnight kiss?"

She frowned hard, thinking it over. It was like watching a miniature Cameron decide what lived or died. "_You_ don't have them."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Girls have cootie antibodies and mommy kisses you all the time so you've been immunised."

He huffed and drew his mouth in a big smile, shaking his head gently. How she knew about antibodies and immunisation the latest mystery of her keen, and at times unnerving, little intellect. "You're a very smart girl, y'know that?"

She nodded with a sage and worldly wisdom decades beyond her years, giving out a big huff, the future of world peace and climate change resting firmly on her shoulders. "I know."

John laughed and kissed her cheek, feeling her kiss him back before he rose from the edge of the bed, moved to the doorway and clicked off the light. "Goodnight, trouble."

"'Night, dad."

John pulled her door closed, turning the handle like he'd always done then went to the bathroom, reaching in the shower and pulling the lever all the way around. Full blast, full heat. A week without a shower made him feel like a vagrant. He shed his clothes into the hamper and set his watch, wallet and old iPhone 4 in a make-shift cairn next to the soap dish.

He looked at himself in the mirror, giving the guy that looked back a homo-wink. He thought he'd matured pretty well since being a teenager, and now, on the first rung of his twenties, he was a pretty good looking guy. His hair was longer than before. He'd stopped liking it short – it made him feel too much like a soldier, but he never wanted it as long as when he was a kid – then he felt like a homeless guitarist.

Despite a wet shave every morning, his chin always looked like it could stand a trim. But Cameron seemed to like it. She said it made him look sexy and rogue-ish – high and unusual praise. He could sure live with that. All he needed to do now was permanently eliminate the hair kept threatening to spread from the back of his neck onto his shoulders and everything would be jake.

He opened the Perspex door and stepped under the steaming stray, feeling the thunderous water kneading his muscles and flesh, the heat dissolving a weeks-worth of outdoor life that had accumulated over their trip. He washed his hair and body, lathering generously and scrubbing hard, feeling his hair untangle and skin sing beneath the blitzkrieg of shampoo and shower gel.

As he was finishing, a lustful smile curled his face, eyes closing and the hard muscles around his abdomen pulling taunt as Cameron moved a soft hand around his waist and up his chest, resting her palm when she found his heart. He felt her body press against him, her mouth kiss his back, every inch of her skin somehow hotter than the cascading water.

"I had a feeling you might be calling."

"Did you?"

John cocked his eyebrow. "It's been a long week. There're some things you aren't patient for." Cameron didn't reply. Instead she reached around with her other hand, this time moving down, taking what she found there in her skilful grasp. John felt blood rush and things start getting firmer. "See what I mean?"

He turned around and faced her, as naked as he was, as smaller and dainty to him as she was stronger. His eyes drank deep – those legs, those arms, her perfect breasts, the slim waist you'd never know had been pregnant. What was left of him to get hard did so in seconds as his gaze reached the heaven between her legs and her arms reached up around him, pulling him down into a kiss, their bodies melting together under the steaming spray.

When they had finished they retired to their bedroom and started over again. Then again when they had finished. It had been a much longer week than they realised. In the end, they stayed up more than they should have, time passing by on flash scan until the last few minutes of the witching hour, when husband and wife were finally sated and there was no one else in the universe either of them wanted more than the other.

John sighed hard and buried his face in her chest as Cameron kissed his hair, hands cupping his head and neck as she straddled him, feeling the uncontrollable, rhythmical waves contract through his body and his hands squeezed her shoulders as hard as he could. He loved that no matter how hard he hugged her, he could never begin to cause her harm.

Cameron's mouth curled into a lustful smirk, her hands easing his head back and she kissed him as deeply as she could. "Did you like that, John?" Her eyes were dark with the confidence and satisfaction that only came with the carnal victory of bringing your lover over the edge.

She let him go and his head collapsed into her chest again. "_Uh-huh._" He managed between breaths, feeling himself come spiralling down from whatever place in thermosphere Cameron had taken him.

"Do you think Riley could have done that to you?"

He shook his head, a muffled _'uh-uh'_ emanating from the same general area. She smiled, the best possible compliment bestowed on her and she held him close, waiting patiently for John to put the pieces of himself back together after she'd taken them all apart. After five-years together, Cameron knew every part of John inside and out, had scanned and recorded him many times. Her map of his pleasures was absolute and there wasn't a single way she couldn't play his body however way she wanted.

Skynet would have killed for the plethora of knowledge she had on John Connor. It _had_ killed, and all it had to show for it was a few sketchy facts and a dozen conflicting descriptions from a Machiavellian shut-in to an eight foot super-soldier that killed terminators by the hundred. If it had known what she knew, it could find and break him easily, have him spill under torture his every last secret.

Cameron tortured him now of course – but it was the type of torture he liked.

As John felt his consciousness slowly coalesce, his mind wandered through the trail of events that had led him to this happy existence, the stepping-stones he'd chosen and the ones that had been chosen for him by fate and destiny to bring him to this wonderfully anachronistic and truly unexpected chapter in his life.

Two years ago, Judgement Day had finally arrived. April 21, 2011. The day he had dreaded and prepared for his entire life.

It had been a Thursday like any other – sunny and golden, not a cloud in the sky, temperatures in the mid-70s. Obama had received Medvedev at the White House, California opened the world's largest solar power plant, Pakistan launched its first satellite and Afghanistan was still a war zone.

But no fire fell from the sky.

No supercomputer took control. The US didn't launch its missiles. No retaliatory strike was made.

_Nothing_ happened.

They'd been prepared, waiting for it to all go down, safe in the basement of their home and the remoteness of _Redwood_. Skynet wouldn't spare a nuke for a township of less than a thousand when it had bigger fish to fry.

But _nothing_ happened.

Nothing happened the next day. Or the next week. Or the next month. _Two years_ of ordinary life went by, and then, out of the blue, just to hammer the point home – the nuclear states of the world signed an agreement to disarm their arsenals of deployed nuclear weapons. No more missiles waiting on launch pads, no more _boomers_ putting to sea with nukes. The massive stockpiles remained of course, mothballed in high-security warehouses and bunkers – but nothing, for instance, which could be launched at a moment's notice by a malevolent, synthetic super-intelligence that had just become aware of what it was and passed judgement on its creators in a nanosecond.

It was over. They'd won.

Even if Skynet came online one day in the future, it had no nuclear arsenal to destroy the world.

John didn't know whether it was because they'd killed enough terminators, saved the right eggheads or sabotaged whatever line of fateful computer ancestry would bring about the beginning of the end. Maybe some combination of everything. He didn't care.

The reality didn't sink in at first and John had carried on as normal. Then one day, he'd gone out on his regular jog when it all hit him at once. So hard and fast that it took the legs out from under him and brought him to his knees, raw emotion tearing him between crying his heart out and laughing himself to death. The result was an indescribable, schizophrenic mess that coursed through his veins like opiate, a heroin that put him on a bizarre trip of denial, hope and ecstasy.

He'd eventually pulled himself together, gone home, kissed and hugged his little girl for an hour, called his mother direct, told her to come find them and then made love to Cameron all night.

The next day, food tasted better than he remembered, the air smelt sweet, every ray of sunshine was manna from heaven. He began feeling healthier, like the shadow of a terrible cancer had been excised from his soul. He took up hobbies, read vacation magazines, even thought about buying a boat.

John was finally out of prison and he could at last be a Connor again. No more fake names, no more lies or half-truths, only normal secrets, no more looking over his shoulder or feeling the hand of destiny poised above his head like the Sword of Damocles.

"What are you thinking about?"

He looked over at Cameron as she lay next to him in their bed; flushed cheeks, chocolate eyes, cascades of beautiful hair spilling out across her pillow, the bed sheets wrapped around the naked curves.

"I was just thinking…" He beamed as sleep took him. "I _love_ being John Connor…"

####

Fir-needle branches and palmately leaves brushed past the man's face like sandpaper and razors, cutting and stinging deep, the knees of his muddy khakis bloodied caps of shredded fabric and flesh. His breath came in short gasps, panicked and deranged as he forged onward madly through the underbrush. His muscles burnt with lactic acid and the stitch in his torso grew, feeling like a bullet wound that tore wider with every step.

His foot caught on an exposed root and he fell flat on his face. Mud splattered and pain spread through his body as he cried out, feeling the tendons in his ankle twist in an unnatural way. More than the pain though was the immutable thought of what the injury meant – he was doomed now and this patch of muddy ground in the dark and rain drenched forest would be his grave.

He pulled the old revolver from his pants pocket, pointing it at every shifting shadow as he dragged himself up against the trunk of a tree. The weapon had been in his family for three generations, used by his grandfather in World War 2. He never thought he'd ever come to use it.

A shadow moved in the dark. Bigger and darker than any of the others.

The man clutched the revolver in his shaking hand and squeezed the trigger. The shot was deafening, the recoil so hard that it sent a pain into his wrist and up his forearm.

The shadow grew larger as it rushed towards him.

He fired again, the pain searing now in the frigid rain.

The shot went wide and useless and the shadow came upon him. The man screamed as it seized his leg and threw him up into the air like a rag doll, tearing his flesh and snapping bone. He wailed in agony, his eyes wild as his killer was revealed in the muzzle flash of his final shot before his head was cleaved from his shoulders and his body began to be eaten.

* * *

_Hope you liked it, there's more to come. It feels good to be writing with these characters again after my spell away on other projects._

_Thank you for reading and please leave a review._


	2. Chapter 2

**NOTES**: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.

**SUMMARY**: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".

**DISCLAIMER**: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

* * *

**"Land of the Living"  
Chapter 2  
T.R. Samuels**

John Connor groaned into the fabric of his soft, white pillow as he swam up from the depths of unconsciousness, his body stretching under the rumpled sheets. He balled his fists hard, feeling knuckles and toes crack as his whole body stiffened to work out the kinks of lethargy. Then he reached over for his iPhone, bringing it close to his face and squinted through sleep and eyelashes at the smooth, vibrant screen.

_7:57am. Sunday. September 8__th__ 2013._

He put the aging device back on the nightstand and moved his other arm across the mattress, searching in vain for the warm body that should have been lying next to him. He turned his head and opened an eye, peeking against the golden sunshine that streamed through the sheer drapes of the open window, feeling his heart sink with disappointment at the barely rumpled emptiness of Cameron's side of the bed.

One of his favourite pastimes was cuddling with her in the dawn of lazy weekends, spooning up behind her or lying on his back as she rested in his arms, her body soft and warm, her head of silken, brown locks tucked under his chin and her gentle breath on his throat. Not to mention that the occasional quickie was yet another speciality in Cameron's repertoire. Not _this_ morning though.

He was about to role over and go back to sleep when his nose caught the scent of something heavenly and is mouth began to water, the succulent smell unmistakable and unlike any other as it curled up his nostrils and called to him with the promise of something even better than sleep or cuddling or even Camerons' quickies.

_Bacon! She's cooking bacon! _Cameron_-bacon!_

Johns' eyes bolted open and he flung back the covers, feeling the muscles that had overexerted themselves the night before as he put his legs over the side, pulled on his flip-flops and headed for the bathroom. Most mornings she had him on a diet of fresh fruit and cereal, one of many active campaigns in her quest to get him to a hundred – but today was Sunday – and that meant the full English spread.

When he was finished with his ablutions he put on some comfortable pants and a blue t-shirt that proclaimed how chilled a dude he was before he descended the staircase, a man on a mission, following his nose and the porcine smell that promised the perfect start to the day.

Sarah was sitting on the rug in the living room, still in her flannel pyjamas, a pillow from the couch and the TV remote clutched in her arms as she watched Sunday morning cartoons. John knelt down beside her, giving her a kiss on her cheek.

"Good morning, beautiful. Did you have a good night's sleep?"

She nodded absently, her attention glued to the television screen, smiling to herself with keen satisfaction as Bugs Bunnys' eyes widened to the size of saucers and his big ears drooped at the sight of Gossamer.

"Watching some cartoons for a change, huh?"

John put another kiss on the back of her head, the smell and feel of his daughter's hair reminding him so uncannily of Cameron's as he stood up on hard knees and headed towards the kitchen. He peered around the doorframe and saw his wife pushing bacon slithers and sausages around a sizzling frying pan, her hair pulled back in an impromptu bun and her front clad in an apron. Cameron could cook better than anyone he'd ever known and her culinary skills could rival any master's, outshined only, and even then just perhaps, by her frightening skill with firearms.

She turned and smiled at him, tendrils of straight, brown hair arching down from her hairline. "Morning, John."

"Morning, Cameron." He had a sly grin on his face, propping his shoulder against the doorframe as he folded his arms. "Is it really Sunday again already?"

"All day," she confirmed.

He walked from the doorway and moved behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder, hugging her too him and breathing deep that special smell of purity and cleanliness she alone was capable of creating. Cameron continued frying as though she hadn't noticed, the feel of her husband and his human warmth touching deep down to her soul.

"I love you." His whisper coiled in her ear and made her mouth curl up in a little smile.

"For cooking you bacon or what we did last night?"

John thought hard for a moment, his face contorting with indecisiveness as he sucked air past his teeth. "Don't make me choose…"

She prodded him with a playful elbow and John released her waist, walking over towards the French doors that led out over the width of timber decking and onto the green grass of the back garden. He pushed them open and stepped out into the gentle morning air, breathing deep and smelling the mowed grass of their neighbours' lawns and the pine needle essence of the forest, the sun casting beams of yellow sunshine through the clouds as it rose in the distance over the forested rim of the snow-tipped mountains.

He sighed with total contentment, his ever-active mind making plans for what he was going to do during the day as a feeling that seeped down to his bones washed through him like crystal-clear mountain water, reminding him of how good life was and that all was right with the universe.

He remembered that at some point this morning he'd have to collect the dog from their closest neighbours, the Falchecks – a pleasant family of a husband and wife with a pair of children Sarah often played with. Before heading off on their camping trip, John had asked if they would look after their half-assed and often idiotic yellow Labrador, the area of the forest they had chosen to stay in having strict regulations against bringing pets into the environment. The last time John had laid eyes on him had been almost a week ago, and despite the animal's questionable worth as a guard dog, John was looking forward to seeing him.

"It's ready, John."

Cameron's call pulled him from his meditative planning as much as the smell of the breakfast she had just served on the pinewood kitchen table. He went inside, noticing immediately that Sarah had abandoned her cartoons, pleased that the girl had also had the sense to mute the television before coming over to enjoy their morning meal.

There were only two place settings on the table; one for Sarah and one for John. Cameron didn't need to eat anymore in the way she had whilst carrying Sarah, insisting, despite Johns' attempts to persuade her, that it no longer tasted as good as she remembered. For her of course, the solution to what she dubbed her 'gustative deficiency' was simple – have another baby.

John had froze solid at the suggestion, dread sinking through him and with shrewd timing he had gracefully changed the subject. One little Sarah was more than enough to handle – _two_ would have been plain suicide.

As John took his seat, he gazed down in delight at the splendour Cameron had laid on for him; sausage, bacon, a pair of sunny-side eggs, some of those little mushrooms he liked and two hash browns with thin slithers of black pudding resting on top next to the plump, round body of a large tomato half. She'd poured him a tall glass of orange juice, extra pulp of course, and a put a press pot of black, course-ground coffee next to a porcelain cup and saucer.

"I should have married you a lot sooner."

Cameron smiled a gave the smallest of nods, a look of quiet affirmation crossing her face about something she had know for years that only now John had come to realise.

The Connor family might not have had the best car, the best television, or this season's line of clothing – but they always ate like kings. The picture-perfect spread before him was evident to that, and Cameron wouldn't stand for anything less. What John and Sarah ate was a matter of high-priority and she wouldn't abide a morsel of whatever didn't pass the scrutinies and rigors of her tyrannical quality threshold.

"Thanks, Cam. This is great."

Cameron ran her hand over the back of his neck as he flurried his napkin, setting it down across his thigh before busying himself with peppering his eggs. She went over to Sarah, tucking her napkin in her collar as the girl lifted a plastic tumbler in both hands and took a big sip of her orange juice.

"Mmm… so what's on the agenda for today?" He asked after his first mouthful of egg and bacon.

His chewing came to an abrupt halt as Cameron produced a small note pad and held it up for him to see, her other hand gently pushing down the plunger on his press pot. John paled slightly and swallowed his breakfast down, the heavenly combination making ambivalence of the list of chores she wanted him to do about the house today.

"Oh, right…" He gave her an amenable smile as he took the pad in his hand and laid it next to his plate on the table. "Sure thing, Cam. I'll get on it right after breakfast." She gave him the faintness of her satisfied smile as Sarah devoured the bacon and sausage of her breakfast, ignoring her hash brown and tomato in her eagerness to return to the television and while away her morning on television and idleness. It reminded John of his youth.

He smiled with tired and philosophical acceptance. He had long since learnt that the depressing truth of adulthood was that it came with baggage. But at least in his unique maturity, there were few bourgeois domesticities John Connor wouldn't rise to – especially when one was married to Cameron Connor and she had just made him breakfast.

He took a bite of his hash brown and tried some mushrooms, pouring himself a steaming cup of aromatic coffee as Cameron delivered a round of hot buttered toast and in no time at all, the cosmic pieces of John Connor's tranquil little universe clicked satisfyingly back into place.

####

White Chuck River and its tributary creeks cut a swathe through the centre of _Redwood_ and the valley of the same name, surrounded on all sides by snowy mountainous peaks and dense forest that isolated the smattering of human community from radio waves, social change, and the rest of civilisation. The township proper was located in a small cauldron where several tributaries met, looking on a map like the bulbous base of a thermometer as it was flanked on either side by the perpendicular ridges of the lesser Black Mountain to the west, White Mountain in the south, and the awesome monument of sheer granite to the east known as Glacier Peak.

The first two of these mountains were tall enough, nearly seven-thousand feet of undulating, mountainous terrain, covered in evergreen forest like the fluffy tufts of a gigantic woollen blanket – the latter on the other hand was a whole different story.

Even to the untrained eye, Glacier Peak looked a little more than twice as big as the other two, the forest a tiny skirt that surrounded its base and pleated out into pale rock and landslide rubble, forging onward and upward as it reached for the clouds until summiting in a distant, snow-capped peak. It was like a single, giant rock that had been birthed halfway out of the earth. Looking at it now it almost seemed as though John could reach out and touch it, or take an hour's walk to the top – like an island across the water that looks smaller and closer than it really is.

John had thought seriously about climbing it, but when Cameron had found out she had given the tentative notion a firm veto, sighting a dozen logical and level-headed reasons why Washington's most remote and least-known stratovolcano was not to be taken lightly. He'd conceded, the look of worry on her face enough to make him regret even thinking it, but there was still somewhere in the depths of his mind that beckoned him to it – the call of the wild and adventure.

John was certain that he wouldn't trade the peace and contentment of _Redwood_ for anything – but there were still those occasional moments when he missed the heart pounding action and non-stop adrenaline he had experienced for those fast few years in his youth.

Then of course, he came to his senses – those days were long behind him now and they weren't coming back. Not in this life anyway.

Whatever debt he owed destiny had been paid for and then some by all those other poor bastards named John Connor from countless alternate realities. They had suffered so he, and perhaps some other lucky ones like him, could be free from that fate and would never have to face it. He wasn't about to turn that down. No more than children and grandchildren of those that had lay down their lives in wars past would do so now for the peace and the freedom they enjoyed.

The tragic and lonely endings of so many other John Connors was the furthest thing from his mind as he and Cameron walked down the country road of patchwork asphalt, swinging their daughter between them as she kicked her legs and giggled. The centre of town was only a quarter mile away and they'd decided to walk the minor distance in the gentle, midday sun.

"Higher!" Sarah squealed, her ebullient laugher on the verge of giving her hiccups.

John frowned, feeling his arm ache from so much swinging and the blood flow curtailed by Sarah's crushing grip and the brutal centrifugal forces. "If you get any higher you'll be Jimi Hendrix!" He tensed his forearm and brought Sarah back to earth. "We're nearly there anyway."

Sarah slipped from her parent's grip and thrust her arms in the air as she ran around them in a circle, fully psyched for the hours of frenetic fun that lay ahead of her. "Woo-hoo!" The dog barked with excitement, caught up in with the girl's enthusiasm as he struggled hopelessly against his leather leash and the fearsome strength of Cameron's forearm.

"Let's make sure she doesn't have too much sugar, huh." John whispered from the corner of his mouth, receiving Cameron's immediate agreement.

As the Connor family entered the edge of town the tell-tale signs of celebration began appearing in drips and drabs; a peaceful quiet amid the town houses, shops usually open closed early, the sound of jollity and high spirits in the distance. Soon they were met by other people that they knew making their own way to the town square and Main Street, some walking and others driving that had come from a greater distance, the annual Glacier Peak Festival attracting people from the entire town and every corner of Redwood Valley.

As they turned onto one of the inner, tree-lined streets more obvious signs of festivity became apparent as a brass band started up, trumpets and drums sounding to echoing cheers as the Connors nipped through a side alley between the bustling saloon and the games arcade, emerging into the throngs of the gathered town's populace as they watched the parade march down Main Street. Confetti streamed from the rooftops, showering the high-school band as they led the procession down the centre of town, the huge motorised float bearing the town's giant, deer-headed mascot at its bow as it carried the mayor, the prom queen, and _Redwood's_ oligarchic body of movers-and-shakers before the fluttering stars and stripes banner of Old Glory.

John lifted Sarah onto his shoulders, the girls' eyes lighting up as she took in the plethoric spectacle of colour and fanfare passing before them and her hands rose to clutch her fathers' ears. John smiled has she held tight, the last jigsaw of his family clicking into place as Cameron pressed her hand into his and they watched the entirety of the festival's opening show until it passed out of view and the throng of citizenry began to mingle.

Either side of the street was a promenade of festive activity; temporary stalls and gazebos lining the sidewalks, the town's regular shops and businesses doing roaring trade, the road proper bared from vehicular traffic and now serving as a confetti-strewn pedestrian street.

John brought Sarah an ice-cream to placate her for the next few minutes as he and Cameron eyed the duck shoot and then each other, the silent challenge thrown down between them as they approached the beer-bellied attendant and paid for a double round. John went first, and without realising it a small crowd of locals formed behind them, eager to see how this was going to go down.

John planted the air rifle against his shoulder like he'd done a thousand times, taking the stance of a seasoned veteran before picking off the targets, each shot finding its mark, the metal disks at the centre of the painted chipboard Anatidae ringing with the satisfying ping of metal on metal as the gas-propelled pellets sent them spinning.

In a little over ten seconds, every target was put down. John twitched a cocky eyebrow, setting the rifle on the counter neatly to a flurry of impressed applause as he swaggered back from the counter and gave his wife a 'beat that' grin.

Cameron looked on without a hint of intimidation, a look of perfunctory indulgence crossing her face as she calmly handed the dog leash over to him and approached to the countertop, accepting the reloaded rifle from the attendant like a connoisseur accepted a bottle of fine wine for initial examination. She took a graceful stance, aiming the rifle and preparing to fire with a natural and effortless gait that made it look like an art form – the way a painter grasped the stem of an elegant brush or a sculptor put hand to clay.

In the time it took for the attendant to throw the switch and the chipboard waterfowl to begin moving, Cameron had put a pellet through each one, her trigger finger like lightening, the rifle barrel moving with pneumatic precision, the jingling sound from the spinning disks ringing to the unmistakably plucky jingle of 'shave and a haircut'.

The crowd stopped and stared, mouths agape, not sure whether what they'd seen was real or imagined before they erupted in roar of cheers and whistles and John buried his face in his palm.

The next hour or so went by as much as they expected, with Sarah wanting to go on everything she set her eyes to, requiring periodic refuelling with first a hotdog, some sandwiches and then a big soft drink, each studiously selected by Cameron least their little girl go into overdrive. It seemed that nowadays even a little glucose, refined carbohydrate or God-forbid caffeine were to Sarah what gasoline was to fire.

A little while later, Cameron was off accompanying Sarah on a pony ride to give John a much earned break, the trials of keeping up with Sarah taking its toll and requiring he take a brief intermission. He was flicking through the contents of a used bookstall, scanning the blurbs, the wizened old owner giving him the fisheye from under her parasol, vigilant and paranoid against potential thievery, when he heard someone call his name from across the street.

"Mister Connor!"

John turned and saw the unmistakably bookish and dinky little figure of Sarah's teacher, a pretty young woman named Amanda Honeybun, approaching him through the throngs of people. John wasn't sure what was more curious about her; that an individual with a name such as hers would happen to become a kindergarten teacher – or the fact that she was _Mrs_ Honeybun.

She bobbed and weaved amidst the pedestrian traffic, at threat any moment of losing her balance or having a head on collision in her eagerness to reach him, her small mass somehow finding a path devoid of congestion as she begged her pardon a dozen different times to everyone she bumped into or even neared.

"How are you, Mister Connor?" She asked once she finally reached him, straightening her black-rimmed glasses and fixing a strand of errant hair as her cheeks visibly coloured in his presence.

Cameron had told him that Honeybun was attracted to him. The first instance, John had noted, that Cameron had made mention of another woman's attraction to him without the slightest hint of the unveiled jealously that plagued their early relationship.

"Well, thank you. How are _you_?" He gave her his most winning smile, the muscles in his upper arms tightening under his loose polo shirt as he rested his hands on his hips.

"Oh, not bad, not bad…" She flustered, eyes widening at John's unintentional, masculine display. "I wanted to speak to you for a moment about Sarah, if I may."

John cast his mind back to their last PTA meeting, remembering nothing of any potential problems. Quite the contrary – Honeybun's early impressions of Sarah were that she was a gifted and talented young girl.

"Something wrong?"

"Oh, not at all! Sarah is an excellent student." She leaned closer and gave a conspirator's wink. "One of my best, actually."

John smiled heartily, any suspicion of overstatement quashed utterly by fatherly pride. "That's good."

"It was about her academic abilities that I wanted to discuss with you," She turned and looked around for someone, spotting them in the distance and gave him a wave. "There's someone who would like to meet you."

John glanced up as a man approached them, noticeably more graceful than Honeybun. He was in fact excellently dressed; a tailored pin-striped suit and expensive cufflinks, his shoes shiny leather and a silk red necktie in a perfect four-in-hand. He had close cropped hair and the pale complexion of someone who'd spent too long in an office, putting him at odds with the local appearance but perfect for a big-city boy on a field trip out in the sticks.

John smiled amiably as the man joined them. "Mister Connor, this is Mister Kevin Gray from the Department of Education."

The two men shook hands. John noted the firm grip.

"Mister Connor," He said with obvious pleasure, as though he were greeting a long-lost friend from childhood. "A pleasure to meet _you_, sir. Amanda here tells me that you're the father of a rather exceptional young girl she has in her class."

John felt flattered despite the mystery of the man and his hitherto unknown intentions. "If you mean Sarah, then yes I am."

Gray set his jaw with clear satisfaction, like he'd just pinned down the one and only man in the country that could provide the elusive answer to a question that had plagued him for years.

"Mister Gray has come all the way from Washington, D.C. to see Sarah!" Honeybun added helpfully.

Gray smiled with a touch of embarrassment. "Well, not _just_ Sarah really," he clarified, "I'm conducting a state-wide '_study'_, if you will, of exceptional children, and Sarah was flagged on one of our 'watchlists', so to speak, as a potential high achiever from her recent test scores. You see, all test scores across the country are now filled electronically with the department and cross-referenced with…"

John tuned out much of what else Gray had to say about the government's record keeping and analysis capabilities, distracted somewhat by words like 'flagged' and 'watchlists' to pay full attention to the minutiae of the man's job.

"…anyway, the crux of the matter is that if Sarah is indeed such a probable future academic achiever, then there are quite a few potential programs of state funded higher education that may be available to her."

"Such as?"

"It's possible that Sarah is already a candidate for a future college or university scholarship."

John was suddenly intrigued, the gears of parenthood turning smoothly under new grease. "Really? So soon? Now that _is_ interesting."

"Quite so. It's a rather recent program, the current administration is eager to invest in the future academic talent of the country's young. May I assume then that you are amenable to the prospect and that you'd give your consent for me to give Sarah a few little tests when she returns to school tomorrow?" Gray saw John's unspoken question and intercepted him. "Nothing too strenuous, of course. Just some simple, specialised tests we've developed… things like arithmetic, pattern recognition, a look at an inkblot or two, that sort of thing."

John felt his mind fill with possibility at the sudden prospect of his daughter's educational future secured on her own merits and in such sudden and unexpected a way. When they had first arrived in _Redwood_ they had been flush with monetary means by way of their share of the Connor family diamonds, but with the purchase of their home, a pair of necessary vehicles and all the accoutrements those things entailed, they had all but exhausted their initial capital funds.

Between them they kept themselves comfortably afloat, but the question of Sarah's future educational prospects was something John had been forced to consider, putting away what little he could every month and hoping that by the time she graduated it would have grown to a sufficient amount.

Now it was all like a dream, everything he ever wanted popping up as and when needed to fill the voids of whatever was lacking in his life, the stigma of cynicism and paranoid suspicion he used to live by like a religion now felt like a foul gatecrasher that was as unwelcome and unwarranted as that of the book-selling old lady's.

"Yes… by all means." He smiled and laughed heartily, grasping the man's hand in a firm handshake and took his forearm with his other hand. "I'd be more than happy for you to see Sarah… anything I can do that will help her."

Gray smiled and Honeybun tapped her fingers together with glee.

"Thank you, Mister Connor," he said smartly. "It'll be my pleasure."

####

John lifted a finely stemmed glass of gossamer-thin crystal to his mouth, swallowing a mouthful of whatever peerless vintage Cameron had given him as they sat together on their porch swing, watching the gold and violet twilight arc across a sky of cirrocumulus cloud. Cameron lay on her back across the pillowed seat, her head resting in John's lap, the fingers of his free hand toying with hers as he rocked them gently with his leg.

Neither of them had spoken for a long while since putting Sarah to bed, the little girl tired out again from her time at the festival and had been put down to sleep by both her parents without any fuss or resistance. John and Cameron made use of the peace and quiet, retiring to the swing and the tranquillity of their back garden, watching the aura of the sun as it passed below the mountains, blurring the line between where Heaven ended and the Earth began.

In the distance, John could see the lights of the town radio mast blinking red up in the heights of Chetwot Point, ghostly swaths of curling mist hanging amidst the treetops of the forest, beyond it the colossus of Glacier Peak, the ten-thousand foot volcanic mountain tipped in a perpetual veil that shone like a golden lighthouse as it reflected the rays of the setting sun.

"I love it here, Cam."

Cameron opened her eyes, gazing up at her husband with much fondness. "I know you do. I like it too."

John took a sip of his wine. He was more of a beer-man at heart, but drinking a little red now and then made Cameron happy.

"How about Sarah then, huh?" He enthused, beaming the way only a proud father could. "'One of the highest test scores in the state'… that'll do alright." By the time he had rejoined Cameron and his daughter at the festival he couldn't find Gray or Honeybun again, the two of them lost somewhere in the crowd. He had retold them on the walk home, beaming with pride as he carried his sleepy brainbox of a daughter in his arms.

"Do you think we should buy her something? A bike maybe? I think she's old enough to learn."

A ghostly concern shrouded Cameron's face.

"Hey… what's wrong?" He asked softly, rubbing the back of her hand.

"I'm just… _concerned_..." She began, torn between her own brand of pride and silent unease. "Sarah's success might make it easier for someone to find us."

John smiled, feeling relieved as he set has glass down on the timber decking and leaning down to kiss her. "No one's gonna after us, Cam." She tasted the wine on his lips – _Baton Pinot Noir, 2006_ – the complex chemical formula analysed and identified in a nanosecond.

"You don't know that for certain, John." She said with some visible effort, despising the sound of it, her own desire to maintain their idyllic haven affronted and depressed by even the mere suggestion that anything was less than perfect. Such talk simply wouldn't do.

John stroked her cheek, neither affronted nor disheartened, his comfortable confidence and emerald gaze hypnotising her and making her fears go away. "Skynet is gone, Cam… the war's over… and there're no terminators left. None anywhere near here at least." Something inside her chest bloomed because he didn't think of her as a terminator, making her love him a little bit more as he closed the gap between them again and whispered against her lips.

"Trust me…"

####

Out on Glacier Peak Highway, a Utilimaster P-500 delivery truck rumbled along on its way to _Redwood_, the twists and turns of the winding road playing havoc with the vehicle's suspension and high centre of gravity. Its heavy load made it tip from side to side as it entered the corners, the wheeled rectangular mass of steel bodywork speeding by the monolithic trunks of the eerily still forest, the full moon reflecting off the glossy, gunmetal finish of its brand new paint-job.

Sitting in the front passenger seat was a man in his early twenties called Lance, his ears plugged with blaring earbuds as he strummed the beat to _I Get Around_ on the plastic dashboard with a pair of chopsticks. Next to him was a slightly older man called Crowe, his hands resting comfortable on the steering wheel, trying hard to ignore the increasing annoyance of Lance's drum session and yet finding his own knee bouncing to the infectious 60s melody all the same.

Behind them in the cargo compartment sat a big man in his early thirties called Kaufman, the muscles in his arms and chest bulging beneath his grey uniform, his long legs propped up on the edge of a large crate as he caught a little shut-eye. Opposite him was the oldest member of the truck's company; a man in his forties with paling black hair and scruffy stubble, his sideburns streaked in grey and the corners of his eyes beginning to wrinkle. His name was Neumann.

Crowe glanced to his right as they passed a road sign. _Redwood – 10 miles._

"Not far now." He said, glancing at Lance as he continued drumming on the dash. Crowe picked up a small Chinese takeout box and threw it at him, the residual Yeung Chow spilling all over the would-be musician like confetti.

Lance yanked his earbuds out. "What the _fuck_?"

"We're nearly there, fuck-wit. Get your ass in gear. The least you can do is _try_ and be a professional."

"Okay. Okay." Lance put his iPod in the glove compartment and slid a company baseball cap over his head, cupping the rim with his palms until it was sufficiently curved to his liking. Crowe leaned back with his arm and rasped his knuckles on the metal partition separating them from the cargo compartment.

Kaufman's eyes snapped open, instantly conscious and aware, a pair of cold blue orbs that looked like ice against his dark, blond hair. He lifted his feet off the crate and sat straight, reaching out and pulling the access door open between the cabins.

"There should be a gas station up ahead. We'll stop there and refuel before moving on." Kaufman's voice vibrated with a husky, alpha-male baritone, a position of hierarchy granted not only by his size and temperament, but by their company superiors as well. He was the supervisor of this little band and he liked it, the responsibility of leadership coming comfortable and natural to him.

"Got it, boss." Crowe responded, seeing the lights up ahead of the depot in question and he flicked on the indicator.

Gravel crunched as the truck pulled onto the forecourt, manoeuvring in next to the pumps and whining to a halt.

"If I remember right, Neumann: it's your turn." Kaufman ordered with his usual passive aggression, giving the older man a look that neither expected nor tolerated disobedience.

Neumann huffed with distaste, getting up on tired old knees and opened the service door, the cool night air wrapping around him as he stepped down onto the weathered tarmac and shut the door behind him. His breath clouded in the air as he wrapped his jacket tighter, pulling on a pair of woollen gloves over fingers that shook occasionally with the onset of premature arthritis or repetitive strain injury, he hadn't decided which one yet.

He pulled open the fuel filler flap and unscrewed the cap, a hiss of gas escaping as he reached for the diesel pump and plugged it into the tank. The gauge sprang to zero and began climbing as it dispensed its fuel, his hands squeezing tight around the trigger of the old-style nozzle as he fiddled in his jacket pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He managed to pull it out, extracting a butt with his lips and lighting it with his cheap and cheerful disposable lighter. He took a long pull from the narrow stick, tasting the bitter tar coating his mouth as the heady nicotine did its business.

"Please put that out, sir!"

Neumann looked over as Vladimir strode across the forecourt towards him, looking firm but diplomatic as he glared at the lit cigarette like it was an unpinned hand grenade.

"Ah, shit…" Neumann took it from his mouth, feeling like a fool and every bit his age and then some, looking around for somewhere safe to dispose of it as everything suddenly seemed flammable. Kamarov pointed to the nearby sand bucket for emergency fire fighting and Neumann tossed it down, the burning stick smouldering out in the fine, ruby particles.

"Sorry about that, I don't know what I was thinking." He tried to apologise, his eyes fighting the static cobwebs of sleep deprivation.

"It's fine, sir. No harm done. First time at a gas station?"

Neumann smiled through embarrassment, taking the slight ridicule with humility. "Ah, you'd think so, huh?" He tried to joke. Kamarov didn't laugh. "I'm sorry. I haven't had much sleep. I wasn't thinking straight."

Vladimir grumbled an acknowledgement and turned his eyes on the delivery truck, studying the logo and letterings on the side. "You guys delivering to _Redwood_?"

Neumann swapped pump hands as his fingers began to hurt. "Eh, yeah. Water delivery. Y'know… big bottled water for coolers."

"Uh-huh." Kamarov took a walk around the front, eyeing Lance and Crowe as they were joined by Kaufman. "Take four of you to do that?"

As he reached the other side of the vehicle, Lance rolled his window down, favouring the old man with an unpleasant smile. Behind him, Kaufman stared at Kamarov from the dim light of the cabin.

Neumann finished pumping gas and placed the nozzle back in the cradle, reaching for the tissue dispenser to wipe some spilt gas from his hands. Kamarov spied the pump read out. "That'll be forty-eight-fifty, gentlemen."

Kaufman reached into the breast pocket of his uniform, pulling out a fat wad of banknotes and peeled off a Grant, handing it to Lance who then passed it along to Kamarov. The old man took the offered fifty, digging in his pocket and came up with some change.

"Here's your change." He passed the bills over, favouring the crew with a look of pity. "Put it towards charm school, huh."

Silence and stillness engulfed the three passengers; their motions frozen, no sound coming from either of them and Kamarov thought they'd even stopped breathing. Neumann was the only one unaffected, his attention distracted from what was going on as he grabbed more tissue and tried to rub the last bit of oily residue from his palm.

"You're a pretty funny guy." Kaufman deadpanned, finally breaking the deathly silence as he looked at the old man with flinty eyes.

"Laugh _this_ up…"

Kaufman lifted a shotgun off his lap and blew a round into Kamarov's chest. The old man fell back, chest a bloody crater, sprawling out dead on the forecourt.

Neumann flinched hard at the sudden crack of the gunshot, turning just in time to see the old man go down and his three comrades pour out of the cabin – each brandishing a lethal weapon; Crowe with a jet black assault rifle and Lance toting a shotgun. Lance had a look about him like he'd just took a cocaine hit, eyes wild and looking every bit like a psychotic loose cannon. Crowe couldn't have been any more different; his demeanour that of a stone cold professional, as ready to piss ice water as he was to get it on.

Another deafening shot rang out as Kaufman put another shot into the fallen Kamarov as he strode by, stepping over the body as he jacked in another round, the spend cartridge flicking out as he rested the weapon with one hand over his shoulder.

"You know what to do boys, so go get to it." He ordered to Crowe and Lance, the two of them grinning wickedly as they advanced together on the store – attack Dobermans freed from the leash.

Neumann tried to get his breath, stumbling against the side of the cab as he drew the Beretta from the back of his pants. His heart hammered as more shots rang out from the store, hearing a woman's scream abruptly cut off with more gunfire.

He moved around the front of the truck in a daze, limbs numb as he saw blood on the store window and Lance jogging fast towards the motel. Kaufman was rooting through the dead Kamarovs' pockets, coming out with a bloodied fifty and slid it back into his pocket.

"Don't worry, Neumann. I figured you'd be rusty so I told the boys to handle this one… ease you back in the game real nice and slow… y'know what I mean?"

Neumann felt sick, like what had happened was his fault somehow. "What the fuck are you doing? This wasn't part of our orders?"

"This place is the last outpost between _Redwood_ and civilisation. Beyond here is forest, mountains and then more of both. We take this place down and the valley is totally cut off." He grinned at him, hoisting a cigar to his mouth and lighting it with a beautifully engraved Zippo. "It's called 'taking the initiative', soldier."

Neumann flinched again to more gunshots, muzzle flashes flickering from motel rooms as Crowe and Lance swept through with cold, systematic efficiency.

"Don't get all high and mighty, old man. The moment you took the money you became as much a mercenary as the rest of us. It's time to decide…" He reached for the concealed holster beneath is jacket, sliding a beautiful Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum that glistened in the moonlight, levelling its awesome barrel right at Neumann's forehead.

"… are you _in_ or are you _out_?"

Neumann looked as Lance and Crowe strolled back, their grey uniforms peppered with blood spray, laughing and joking with one another as they shared a stolen bottle of scotch in their shared euphoric afterglow.

"What's this, boss? We got a mind-changer?" Lance lifted his rifle in Neumann's direction, a bloodlust taking him over as he glared like a crazed delinquent.

"No trouble, Lance. Just waiting for Neumann to see the light." Kaufman's voice was like a tranquilizer, calming Lance in an instant with the fear of doing wrong, like a loyal dog seeking his master's praise.

"So… what's it gonna be, old man?"

Neumann swallowed, past the painful lump in his throat and forced down the sickness threatening to erupt out of him. He lowered his arms and slipped his Beretta back in his belt, tugging the jacket down over it and put on his best Bogart calm.

"I'm in guys," He smiled through suppressed revulsion. "I'm in all the way."

Kaufman eyed him coldly for a moment, watching for the tell in Neumann's expression that would call him a liar. When none came he smiled wide around his stogy, gripping it with his teeth, smoke curling around him as the end glowed. "Well alrighty then!"

The three mercenaries dispersed towards the truck, leaving Neumann in their wake as the elder soldier pulled his act together, suddenly feeling more alive than he had in years. He turned and followed them, averting his eyes from Vladimir's corpse as he approached the truck, his gaze moving over the fake company emblem.

_The Water Delivery Guys™._

It was a lacklustre name and a crappy clipart logo that belied the delivery crew's true identity as a group of mercenary ex-soldiers that were little more than a band of hired thugs. Every moment Neumann spent with them made him feel sick and dirty, the feelings of moral bankruptcy that roiled inside him only offset by the handsome remunerations of their furtive employer – an unseen benefactor known only to Neumann as a disquieting, electronic voice at the end of a phone line.

The crew stowed their weapons and got back in the truck, Lance taking the wheel as he docked his iPod and meshed the gears, stamping on the accelerator and spinning the tires on the loose asphalt as the truck growled off the forecourt, leaving the bloody carnage they had wrought in a shower of aggregate as they continued on towards _Redwood_ to the epic guitar strings of _Thin Lizzy_ and _The Boys Are Back in Town_.

* * *

_Thank you for reading and feel free to leave a review._


	3. Chapter 3

**NOTES**: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.

**SUMMARY**: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".

**DISCLAIMER**: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

* * *

**"****Land of the Living"  
Chapter 3  
T.R. Samuels**

Monday morning arrived with the same inevitability as death and taxes.

John rolled out of bed with great reluctance and a dissatisfied growl, the heat of a scalding, early morning shower a poor substitute for the snug warmth of his marital bed. It only brought him the initial semblance of humanity he needed to face the day, making stiff joints and muscles pliant and giving him a warm, healthy glow. He shaved and brushed his teeth, swilling blue mouthwash like it was a shot of florescent alcopop and treating it with similar reverence as he spat it down the drain.

When he returned to the bedroom, Cameron was gone, the bed remade with military precision and had even put his clothes out neatly on the covers. He smiled, warmed so completely by the simple act, turning his head as he heard the pitter-patter of his daughter's tiny feet as she padded across the landing to the bathroom and clicked the door closed.

He started to dress, each successive article having a flow and a rhythm to it. Shirt on first, button up and cufflinks, pants next, button then fly, black leather belt, socks and then shoes before the final agony of tie selection – the autonomous mechanics of dressing for work familiar and methodical, ingrained into muscle memory like a soldier putting on fatigues or an astronaut getting into a spacesuit.

He arrived in the kitchen ten minutes later, taking a seat at the table opposite Sarah as the little girl spooned cereal into her mouth and read the puzzles Tony the Tiger challenged her with, his gaze catching Cameron in the kitchen as she brought him a cup of coffee and tried to ignore the fact that she was probably naked under her dressing gown.

"Ready for school, Sarah?"

She looked up from the cereal box slowly, the look of enthusiasm she gave him not at all dissimilar to the one he had seen earlier in the bathroom mirror.

"Not challenging you, huh?" He grinned, fatherly pride blooming as he took a sip of his coffee. "I've got a feeling today will be different."

Sarah sat up, eyes narrowing at his implication. Sometimes she scared him with her keen senses, like he was talking to a miniaturised adult that could not only answer back, but do so logically and with reason.

"What do you mean?" She cocked her head with suspicion the same way her mother did.

"Oh, just someone important who wants to give you some little tests. See how smart you are." He made a show of pouring the milk over his corn flakes, staying nonchalant as he scooped his first spoonful. "It's probably too soon for you though. Too difficult, I suspect."

Sarah stared at him for a moment, then resumed eating, dignifying his poorly veiled attempt at reverse psychology with equally oblique distain. "We'll see…" She muttered past a mouthful of cereal that inflated the side of her cheek.

After breakfast, Sarah was made ready for school, little of which came from her own efforts as Cameron put the finishing touches on the contents of her lunchbox and John tied her shoelaces tight, fitting the girl with her fleece jacket, woolly mittens and a hat, pulling the tuque down over the tips of her ears like a swimming cap. Cameron slipped her lunch into her backpack and helped her put it on, lifting the shoulder straps over her shoulders and securing them in place as the girl shrugged them to comfort.

Both parents stood back and admired the fruits of their labours, glancing at one another and smiling with deep satisfaction with the adorable ensemble they had created. Sarah merely scowled.

"All set?" John asked her, putting on his coat and picking up his briefcase.

"_Eminently_."

He scraped his keys off the kitchen table and put them in his pocket. "That's the spirit. Keep using big words and knock 'em dead."

As he pulled a scarf around his neck Cameron knelt down and opened her arms, embracing Sarah as she toddled over and hugged her tight. Mother and daughter held one another for long seconds, the little girl swaying in her arms as she tried in vain to get closer. Cameron kissed her cheeks, taking the girls head in her hands and putting a final kiss on her forehead, a gentle and motherly affection rarely seen by anyone outside of their family.

She didn't like Sarah being away from them, even if it were only a couple of miles in town. On her first day of school, she was more nervous than Sarah, despite the fact she had gone over the school on open day with a fine toothcomb, put all the teachers on edge and run background checks and cursory surveillance on every member of staff. Cameron didn't like the idea of the personification of her and John's love being cared for by a bunch of strangers.

And she _was_ a personification – the very _embodiment_ of all Cameron cared about and whose sum equalled more than its parts. She had to be. John wouldn't have fathered a child with her if he didn't love her – it was as simple as that.

"Have fun today." The words were said with just a hint of discomfort, like someone speaking about something they didn't entirely understand but were well-meaning and intentioned all the same. "And be educated."

Sarah gave her patented half smile, grateful for her mother's attempt, even if it was a little clumsy. "Thanks, mom."

Cameron nodded and rose to her feet, turning to John and embracing him, the two of them sharing a long and gentle kiss.

"Umm… I'll pick her up tonight, and I'll see _you_ later." He held out his hand for Sarah and opened the door, an early morning chill swirling around them as they stepped out into the long morning rays of yellow sunlight and made their way to the car.

For travelling to work and making the school run, John had bought a sensible Ford Fiesta ECOtenic. Moonlight silver and sixty-five to the gallon. Not the biggest or flashiest he could have got, but with gas prices rising every month, he had to admit that it had been one of his shrewder investments, well worth the final depletion of their hoard of diamonds. In truth, he'd been glad to see them gone and liquidated into something useful. A bag of uncut diamonds was not exactly something he felt safe having around.

He held the passenger door open, helping Sarah with her seatbelt and made sure it was fastened tight. He put his briefcase on the backseat and climbed in behind the wheel, turning the ignition and flicking on the heater as they waved goodbye to Cameron and he backed them neatly off the driveway. A few minutes later they were out of their cul-de-sac and on their way into town, the local (and only) radio station giving them a comfortable background melody as they passed by the various aftermaths of yesterdays' festivities.

Road sweepers were out in force, as were the garbage men, emptying overflowing trash cans and cleaning up the streets, hosing down the inner roads and sidewalks where necessary and hanging flower baskets – re-beatifying all that had been despoiled. Main Street had been completely transformed and had probably been the epicentre of initial clean-up, the asphalt jet black and gleaming, water evaporating into steam. As far as John could tell, he'd never have known there'd been over a thousand people crammed in here yesterday.

He glanced at Sarah and saw her scowling again. "I know school sucks, sweetheart." He offered up, eyes widening at a sudden flash of inspiration. "Hey, I know! How about we stop and I'll buy you a cookie?"

Sarah's face remained unchanged, then grew into a big smile, nodded heartily and making John laugh.

"Just don't tell your mom, okay?"

He pulled the car into a parking space at the front of the town diner and coffee shop known as 'A Brewed Awakening', following on the heels of Sarah as she unbelted herself and went on ahead of him, her little frame heaving open the heavy door before she confidently approached the counter. The waitress made a mushy smile when she saw her, an old woman whose name John couldn't remember, her forearms resting on the counter as she bent over to engage little Sarah eye to eye.

"Oh! Aren't you such a little darling!" Her face contorted as she looked at her with utter adoration, drawing the attention of other female staff and several of the diners. John recognised some of them, most stopping in for breakfast before heading off to work, nursing coffee cups and newspapers or delving into heart-healthy lashings of pancakes or bacon. He was a little surprised though that many of them nodded to him in greeting, some of them even raising a hand in greeting.

"Good morning," he smiled at the waitress, "can we get one of your big, double chocolate cookies and a large espresso, please?"

She nodded and pushed back from the counter, using a pair of plastic cooking tongs to pinch a cookie from the warm display cabinet and slipped it into a paper bag. Sarah took it gleefully, shuffling the edge of the baked biscuit out and took a big bite out of it. The waitress poured John's coffee like a master barista, sliding on the domed lid and placed it on the counter as he handed over some money, picking up a straw and piercing it through the lid.

"Come on then," He got his change and ushered Sarah towards the exit. "Thank you."

A chorus of 'goodbye', 'see ya' and 'catch you later' rose like wave behind him as nearly everybody in the diner said their individual farewells almost in unison. John stopped and looked back as he held the door open for Sarah, his eyebrows stretching for his hairline as he glanced around the room as the diners resumed their meals and the staff went merrily back to work.

John huffed, no sure what to make of it. Everyone certainly seemed to be in quite a good mood this morning. The festival must have been better than he thought.

After a mile or so more driving Sarah had finished her cookie and the Fiesta pulled up outside Redwood Kindergarten School. After cleaning the corners of her mouth with a tissue, John tapped her on the arm.

"Hey, listen…" He said, forestalling her departure as Honeybun appeared in the doorway and began ushering waiting children inside. "Y'know… this whole test thing you're gonna do today. I know I made a big deal of it, but it's not _really_ that important. Just do your best and don't worry about passing anything." He smiled, pushing some hair away from her face and curling it behind her ear. "No matter what, your mom and I will always be proud of you."

Sarah face softened into her version of her mother's precious smile and she reached for him, her arms circling his neck as they hugged one another tight. "Have a good day, alright. I'll come and pick you up later." He kissed her cheek and they got out of the car, holding hands as they walked the last few feet to the entrance and John put her straight into Honeybun's charge, father and daughter sharing a last little wave as she was taken inside and John headed back to the car.

####

John arrived at work at 8:15am, driving the Fiesta onto the office car park through a pair of heavy iron gates. As he slipped the vehicle into a space between a grass verge and a fellow colleague's Buick he caught a glimpse of the brand new company logo embossed in Century Gothic above the first floor windows.

_Keen-Swift Construction_

From what John had seen and experienced over the last four-and-a-half years in the company's employ, there were at least two things wrong with that title – he just hadn't yet decided which two of them they were. If the wall of the entrance lobby was to be believed then _Keen-Swift_ had had a long and illustrious history stretching back twenty years, chocked full of triumph and glory, the framed certificates and glass goblet trophies boasting proudly to whoever entered the validity of its claims to success.

Inside the empty building, John unlocked his office and put his briefcase down, hung his coat on the pillar hanger and sat at his desk, the generous workspace located in a private office he shared with a pair of co-workers that was colloquially referred to as 'the Goldfish Bowl', named so because of its distinctive shape and, he suspected, as a subtle riff on at least two of its regular occupants – he was pretty sure he knew which ones.

He used to work outside in the open plan office, the bustle of office life and interpersonal relations a constant annoyance that had given John a series of trying headaches. He had spent so much of his early life alone or away from people that the daily ambience of _Keen-Swift's_ ergonomic floor plan had almost made him pray for a cubical farm. That was until he'd made a lucky series of career-boosting moves that saved the company's reputation with the local authority after they'd made a particular bad debacle. More importantly; he had earned them more money. In recognition he'd been promoted and moved into this semi-private office, ruffling a few peoples' feathers in the process.

He unscrewed the lid from his plastic cup and had a mouthful of coffee, feeling the espresso permeate his brain and body, fortifying him for the day ahead as he savoured the early morning silence of the mostly vacant building, the only employees yet in attendance besides himself the members of the cleaning staff and a few maintenance men. He noted with some distain that his in-tray was significantly fuller than he remembered, its sides bulging with the weeks worth of activity and the weight of a particularly ominous document that he recognised instantly. It was the bill of quantities for the new project in Crystal Creek.

John sighed hard and hauled it out, placing the thick wad of bog-standard paper on the desk in front of him. It had an impressive weight, thick as a phone book, the covering sheet stamped with important red ink and the company logo. The first time John had seen one of these he'd almost peed, the soul-crushing tree trunk explained to him as a comprehensive document used for tendering and reference that served as a 'bible' of sorts for a single construction project – only later discovering for himself that it was in reality an anal and neurotic diatribe prepared by the most reductivist and bean-counting of low-lives that had ever existed – quantity surveyors.

John hated them. They reminded him too much of soulless terminators and their penurious dispositions rubbed the free-spirited warrior poet within him just the wrong way.

John had been one of them now for nearly four years.

In his darkest hours of job-related misery, he reminded himself that the reason he put himself through this every day was for Cameron and Sarah, the two of them staring back at him from the framed picture he kept on his desk. It was one of the few images that existed of Cameron actually smiling, that perfection alone increased ten-fold as she hugged little Sarah from behind, holding the girl against her chest as their daughter squealed and laughed in a captured instant of total joy.

John though it was the most perfect picture that had ever existed, and one look at it was enough to lift his spirits to face whatever challenge life threw at him.

He straightened himself in his seat, turning his computer on and pulled himself close to the desk, opening the fearsome document past the first initial pages of ass-covering legal jargon and began crunching the numbers.

Right around noon, John had been working for nearly four hours straight, his mind absorbed in the task at hand as his desk had gradually filled with more documents and architectural drawings, his mechanical pencil, highlighters and scale rule all feeling the burn, the buttons of his calculator sticking. The office had filled up since the day began and the muffled noise of typical office activity was now at nominal levels – phones ringing, keyboards tapping, the omniscient ebb and flow of human conversation.

He managed to get through a quarter of the file – not bad going for half a day's work – checking quantities and rates against quotes and drawings on everything from the hundreds of feet of skirting and architrave to lump-sum prices for steel building frames and mechanical sub-systems. He felt pretty fried, forehead and eyes throbbing from so much attention to detail. Time to break early for lunch.

No sooner had John got his coat and slipped his car key ring around his finger than Aaron Rauger, his divisional manager and direct superior, made a sudden entrance through the door. His colleagues greeted him with their usual feigned welcome, though John noticed it seemed a little more authentic and natural today. John himself merely groaned inwardly and slumped back in his chair.

"Hey, John," Rauger greeted with too bright a smile as he sauntered over. "What's happening?" John always thought the man looked like he had too little to do, his hands always empty and there was too much spring in his step.

What the hell was it with everyone today? Glacier Peak Festival hadn't been _that_ good this year.

"The usual stuff. I made a start on the bill for Crystal Creek and I was…"

"Great! Listen…" Rauger shifted gears faster than Jenson Button, perching himself on the edge of John's desk. "We've got a few issues with material-on-site out at Crystal Creek. They broke ground there yesterday morning and I'd like you to go out and take an inventory. Pad this month's valuation nice and thick."

_Son-of-a-bitch._

Material-on-site was a measure of the amount of construction material such as bricks or timber that had been delivered to site, but had yet to be incorporated into the building, usual stacked and stored in a secure compound awaiting final installation. As part of the contract with their clients, _Keen-Swift_ got a percentage of the final worth of the material just for it being there, and that measly amount was enough for Rauger to send John all the way up into the mud and drizzle to take stock of what they could cash in on.

"Sure thing, Ron," he feigned his best bullshit-smile, "I'll go straight up and sort it out."

Rauger cocked his head and gave him the thumbs-up. "You the man, John. I knew I could count on you."

_Asshole._

"No problem. Whatever's good for the company, right?"

As Rauger stood and walked away, John's smile vanished, fighting the urge to give the guy the finger as he meandered out of the office and down the corridor, douching it up as he scanned the outer office for signs of where he might apply his unearned authority and unwelcome input.

John gathered his things together and went out to the car park, putting his briefcase and coat on the front passenger seat before opening the trunk, checking to see that his measuring wheel, steel-toe boots and high-visibility jacket were all accounted for. When he climbed in behind the wheel he took a moment's rest, toying with the idea of stopping home first before going out to site – see Cameron and give her a hug.

The only problem was that hugging Cameron led to other things, and with Sarah out of the house it invited all manner of devious, time consuming activity they could get up to.

_No._ He was a grown man and had work to do. Work that sustained them in their idyllic existence. He'd see Cameron later.

On his way out on Glacier Peak Highway, John ate his way through the contents of his lunch box, savouring the two sandwiches lovingly prepared for him that morning. No crust, wholesome brown, lightly toasted, two layers of roast ham with tomato and cheddar, English mustard for bite – none of that weak-ass French crap. She'd added a pot of chopped fruit too, making up at least three of his five-a-day, plus a packet of plain cashew nuts and a little bottle of Tropicana to wash it down.

By the time he'd finished eating it, he felt as right as rain.

The construction site at Crystal Creek was about seven miles out of town, not that far, he noted, from where they'd encountered that abandoned SUV a few nights ago. He made a mental note to call by the sheriff's department on his way home or phone them when he got in, find out what had happened out there and if the driver had ever been located.

He turned onto the site, keeping the car on the steamrolled gravel laid down as an area of temporary hardstand, preventing cars and delivery vehicles falling into the muddy quagmire of the site proper – a rectangular field of mud and aggregate that when seen from above looked like someone had taken a giant cookie cutter to the forest. He parked in front of the modular office cabins; a pair of rectangular steel boxes, one sitting on top of the other, their windows covered in metallic mesh and opened security shutters. The site generator stood at one end, thrumming away happily as it burnt through the content of its huge gasoline tank, providing the site with power.

John had seen the first fuel bill for the outdated power plant and authorising the first payment sheet had felt like passing a kidney stone – some months, the damn thing earned more money than _he_ did.

He cleared up the mess from lunch and stepped out into the cool air, the sky an overcast veil of angry clouds as he pulled his coat on, stepping around to the trunk and changing into his heavy duty boots and fluorescent jacket. He took a new surveyor's pad from the stack he kept hidden along with a pen and pencil, stuffing them in his jacket pocket along with his tape measure before ascending the aluminium staircase up the side of the cabins and entered the main office.

The air inside curled with the smell of feet and tobacco, the little kitchenette looking like an impending biohazard and the floor around the doorway covered in boot prints. The calendar in the wall had a girl younger than he was showing off her tits, dressed in unworn work clothes and a construction hard hat. One side of the wall had a rack of architectural plans and drawings, the other a project flowchart, a desk and chair sitting between them where the sexagenarian site manager sat reading a newspaper, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth as he filled in the crossword.

"How's it going, Dennis?" John asked as he put his name and arrival time down in the safety register.

Dennis Curley looked up from a twelve letter word for 'blasphemous' and noticed John for the first time since his arrival. "Oh, hi John!" He folded the paper shut and gave him his full attention. "Put the kettle on and let's have some coffee."

John liked Dennis. The guy was a good natured old pro who had done the same job for over forty years, building God-knows how many structures in his professional career and now bided his time quietly until retirement. He didn't make mistakes and he didn't make waves, his philosophy in life was to just 'take it easy' – something John himself could heartily embrace.

"Don't mind if I do." He clicked the appliance on and found a pair of clean cups from the cupboard, pouring himself and Dennis each a cup of black as they talked shop and put the injustices and inadequacies of _Keen-Swift_ to rights.

The best thing about his job was that at least he could get out once in a while – away from the office, sometimes for whole days at a time and speak freely and openly out of range of the omniscient eyes and ears of the company brass and office snitches.

After ten minutes or so of idle chatting, John was thinking about making a move out to site when the door to the cabin burst open, a kid groundworker called Eli stumbling inside with a flushed, panic-stricken expression.

"Den! Ah shit boss! We got a problem!"

Dennis rolled his eyes, sharing a look with John that dreaded the details of whatever idiotic mistake had been made now. "What is it now, Eli?"

The kid caught his breath, pausing for what John suspected was effect, before finally coming out with it.

"There's a dead guy out in the woods! Just beyond the perimeter!" He looked like he was going to barf. "The guy's… his… his _fucking_ head's all missing and there's blood and guts everywhere! I'm _not_ kidding!"

John and Dennis looked at one another, suspicious of a practical joke before turning their gazes back on Eli. The kid had started pacing, hands shaking with adrenaline and the colour draining out of him in a cold sweat. He kept shaking his head, eyes looking through everything to something else, burnt hard onto the inside of his eyelids and the eternal album of his memory.

This _wasn't_ a joke.

"Eli," Dennis got to his feet and took charge, sitting the kid down in a chair as John got him some cold water. "I want you to take a seat and stay here. John and I will go take a look."

In a matter of minutes Dennis had put a call into the sheriff's department and John was following the old man across the muddy landscape, out towards a crowd of aghast groundworkers and labourers that had congregated in agitation at the far end of the site, right on the border between where the exposed earth gave way to thick underbrush and forest.

"It's down there…" One of them pointed down into a furrow of underbrush, between a pair of trees that marked the scene of a vicious and ferocious blood bath, the ominous details of carnage immediately apparent even though the body itself was obscured.

John and Dennis descended carefully, using the trees and their low branches for support until they reached the bottom and pulled back the ruffled shrubbery to the reveal the crimson carnage of mangled corpse.

Dennis nearly wretched and John looked away, his heart hammering as the gathered work crew groaned with repugnance, most of them dispersing back across the site towards the cabins.

"Sweet Jesus!" Dennis stumbled away, making his way immediately back up the short incline. "I'm gonna see how far away the sheriff is."

"I think I hear him already."

Sure enough, somewhere in the distance John could hear the wailing siren of a rapidly approaching police car, the noise sounding cavernous as it echoed off the hills and cliffs in a ghostly, banshee wail.

John turned around and forced himself to look at the mutilated remains, all but certain in his mind that this had to be what was left of the driver of the SUV. In grim confirmation, John looked up and scanned the tree line, following the landscape past tree trunks and swirling mist to where the flowing water of White Chuck River gleamed in the distance. Beyond that he knew lay a stretch of Glacier Peak Highway up on a steep slope of valley – the same stretch where they had encountered the crash he'd looked down from only two nights ago.

He felt gladder more than ever that he hadn't tried to climb down, the sight of what was spread out before him now like nothing he'd ever seen. He had seen dead bodies before of course, had even killed for himself, but nothing like this. The body was so torn up and deformed, limbs snapped and skewered at unnatural angles, the head missing and the contents of the body broken open, spilling its innards of blood and organs over the lush green foliage.

John was about to turn away and climb out before something caught his eye. Something glistening and reflective amidst the carnage. For a moment, he thought it was belt buckle or a piece of jewellery until he looked at it closer, the position of it in amongst the flesh precluding the possibility of external finery.

Whatever it was, it had come from the inside.

John's thought immediately jumped to a graft plate or surgical pin of some kind. Then he moved closer.

Something cold and dreadful began forming in John's stomach, is insides roiling as he was drawn on by a sheer force of will he had thought he has lost forever. Something within him felt like a door had suddenly opened – an echo from his past – setting his nerve and driving him forward to uncover the truth no matter what he was going to find.

He reached into his pocket and took out his pen, grasping it at its extreme end and coiled it under a flap of torn flesh, his hand shaking as the dread of what he was about to uncover began settling in him with an oily sickness.

He pulled the flesh back and recoiled in horror, dropping the pen but the flap of tissue remained open. The full horror bowled him over, falling on his backside in the squelching mud.

His breath became ragged, pumping in and out of him in clouds of crystallising vapour, his heart thrumming harder than the site generator.

This wasn't happening. It was _impossible_!

Beneath the tattered flesh that John knew know was the covering of a knee cap, a sight he never thought he'd see again protruded out of the corpse, glistening and horrible as droplets of bright blood beaded on its surface – a surface of smooth and stainless _metal_.

John had seen the design before. Slightly different perhaps, but the similarities were undeniable. The knee joint was unmistakably of machine design, though the series-type and model number escaped him.

It was impossible, but it was happening. The evidence only a few feet away. Who or whatever this thing had been pretending to be, it was without any doubt a _terminator_.

John set his jaw hard and burnt his eyes into the corpse, a sudden rage and hatred boiling inside him that he hadn't felt in ages. He felt like he wanted to take a sledge hammer and pound the remains into nothing, or bury it under tonnes of concrete never to be seen again. But none of that would happen. The police were on their way and soon _Redwood_ and his peaceful existence would be blown wide open into a thousand pieces. A million questions would be asked, the eyes of the law, the government, and even the military would descend upon them like an unstoppable wave.

Pulling himself forward, John reached for what remained of the shredded pants, feeling carefully with increasingly bloodied hands for a wallet or billfold, anything that could shed light onto this thing's assumed identity. Maybe it could put him one step ahead of the sheriff before…

A pair of powerful hands seized him by the shoulders, hauling him up with incredible strength, pulling him away from the body and up to his feet before whirling him around to come face-to-face with Sheriff Bacchus.

"What the hell are _you_ doing, Connor?" He roared at him point-blank, looking John up and down like he had lost his mind.

Bacchus was a mountain of a man and a former Special Forces soldier, killing any knee-jerk reaction John might have for fight or flight.

"You're contaminating a potential crime scene for Christ-sake! What the hell were you thinking?"

John thought fast, looking Bacchus straight in the eye. "I was just checking to see if the guy had any ID, maybe tell us who he was."

"That's _my_ department, Connor! You count bricks and mortar!" Bacchus released him from his iron grip but didn't back down, staying in John's space and glared into him with a growing look of disbelief, disappointment and sad rebuke. "I'm sorry John, but I can't let this slide. You may have compromised important evidence."

"But this is a bear attack, right? What evidence are you talking about?"

Bacchus levelled his eyes at him with professional intensity, nerves going cold as he grabbed him again by the shoulders and spun him around, yanking out his handcuffs and slipping the unyielding links tight around Johns' wrists.

"John Connor… I am placing you _under arrest_…"

####

Brown crayon swathed along the inside of a thin black line that crudely depicted the thoracic crest of a Velociraptor. Then it began to scratch, etching details with miniscule strokes to describe thin areas of leathery hide amidst a feathery underbelly. Longer and broader feathers were added to the arms, making them more like wings, and a tuft of auburn plumage formed the tip of the tail. By the time it was finished, rather than a ferocious lizard, it would more resemble an angry chicken – accurate and consistent with current understandings of these ancient and extinct creatures.

Sarah had always found colouring easy, her hand-eye coordination superior to that of her fellow pupils as they floundered beneath the simple task, straying beyond the lines constantly and depicting patterns and colours that were ridiculous.

Velociraptors were _not_ pink. Nor did they have laser cannons – no matter what Freddy Hicks insisted.

She looked out of the empty classroom window as the other children ran about in the playground. Honeybun had asked her to stay behind and told her that Mister Gray would be here soon to meet her, giving her some colouring books to pass the time before sitting in the corner at her desk, reading another of her romance novels disguised behind the dust jacket of War and Peace.

"…well, when you're finished there I'll meet you…" The classroom door creaked open and Gray entered, cradling a cell phone in the crook of his neck as he carried a briefcase and worked the door knob. "Alright, I see you then. Yeah, later." He dropped the phone, catching it in his hand and snapped it shut.

"_Sarah_…" His eyes fell upon her where she sat at her desk, his eyes sparkling like pearls. "I'm so pleased to finally meet you."

Sarah looked him up and down as he and Honeybun spoke briefly with one another, confirming the nature of the tests and how long it was expected to last. His suit certainly fit his name and his pressed white shirt was buttoned neat and tight, the blood-red of his tie the only hint that his existence spread beyond monochrome.

"It shouldn't take too long… maybe half an hour or so."

Honeybun nodded before taking her leave, the classroom door clicking shut with a hint of echo as she left Gray and Sarah alone.

He put his briefcase down and pulled out the chair opposite her, sliding a bound leather notebook onto the table before sitting, picking the briefcase up and setting it on the floor beside him. He opened the notebook and slid past numerous pages filled with writing and diagrammatic sketches until he found one fresh and unblemished, sliding out a silver fountain pen from a nifty compartment along the inner spine.

"Now then, Sarah. I'm Kevin Gray from the Department of Education and I'm just here to ask you a few little questions, if that's alright?"

Sarah stared for a moment before she shrugged, sliding her crayon back into its box.

Gray made a little laugh as he removed a pair of glasses from an expensive case and began cleaning them. "You're a girl of few words, aren't you. Isn't there anything you'd like to ask me? Any questions or anything that bothers you before we begin?"

Sarah looked into his eyes, looking for irony or condescension in the pale blue orbs. This look often put Honeybun on edge, but Gray didn't seem to notice. She didn't like that he wasn't unnerved by it, and there was something about blue she always found rather off-putting – like it was the antithesis of her favourite colour red. His tie helped offset that of course, it was even her favourite _shade_. For a brief moment, she wondered if that was why he'd chosen it.

"No." She said, changing her expression to something more amiable. "I think I'd like to answer some questions."

Gray smiled and wrote the time and date on the clean page, adding Sarah's name and the words 'first interview'.

"Okay then," He tapped a full stop and drew a line under what he'd written before pulling the notebook back, resting it in his lap as he got comfortable in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. "These questions will start off pretty easy, and to be honest there's no right or wrong answer…" He looked down at his book and wrote something. "You come across a river in a forest, do you cross it?"

Sarah gave him the fisheye, surprised and wary of the nature of the question.

"Yes."

Gray jotted before continuing. "If you had to choose between the life of your father and your mother, which would it be?"

Sarah slid back in her chair and folded her arms. She hated psychology. "Neither. I'd choose me."

The look on Gray's face brightened then, like he'd been given a fresh dose of life-force that brought colour back to his cheeks. "That's a pretty unusual answer for someone your age. Why would you sacrifice yourself before your parents? Most children wouldn't."

She looked at him then like he was something small and when she finally said something, he felt tingles go down his spine.

"My father represents 'authority'; my mother represents 'home'. You're testing how strong my loyalty is. Why?"

He cleared his throat and jotted something before crossing it out. "I'm just trying to get an idea of your personality type. Most gifted children have atypical psychological traits and are inherently predisposed to…" He paused as she continued staring at him, an unnatural keenness in her eyes making him realise something profound and so completely unexpected. It made his heart beat a little faster.

"You actually understand what I'm talking about, don't you. That's… _incredible!_"

Gray's face broke out in a genuine smile, thrilled and excited beyond measure by the tiny individual he had almost stumbled across by accident and was now giving him one of the highlights of his career.

"Let me just… hang on a second…" He sat up and reached down into his briefcase, rummaging around for a moment before producing a glossy textbook and began flicking through the pages. "Here, look at this…" He held the book open and turned it around for her to see. With his finger he had indicated an unusual shape on the page that looked like a square and triangle combined with an oblique sphere.

"If this shape was turned inside out," he turned to the next page, pointing to a series of strange, three-dimensional shapes labelled 'A' to 'D', "which of these would it…"

"The second one…"

Gray sat stunned, his certainty about Sarah all but confirmed. "That is amazing, Sarah. Well done."

"…and it's upside down."

He shook his head, hardly able to believe. He felt younger and vigorous all over again. "It's easy for you isn't it. I'm willing to bet you've always found things easy to see and you understand them right away. It's what sets you apart from other people, and they see it in you."

Sarah felt a chink in her armour slip, his words finding a weak point. "What do you mean?"

"Other children and grown-ups look at you and they see something they find a little threatening. Something better than they are. Better than they'll _ever_ be and they don't like it. Envy is one of the most predictable of human feelings." He pushed his notebook aside and leaned forward, engaging her on her own level, his face betraying nothing but honesty and earnest.

"I understand how you must feel about that, Sarah," He smiled painfully. "I felt the same way when I was your age. I was gifted and intelligent beyond my years and it set me apart, made people look at me differently and feel threatened by how easy I made things that they couldn't even begin to understand."

Sarah felt the words have their intended purpose, her suspicions disarmed so completely by this man and the kinship he tried to evoke. She _did_ notice how people looked at her differently, especially those at school. The other students spoke about her when they thought she wasn't listening. The teachers had an unspoken fear. The only time she felt truly comfortable was at home with her parents, where they only looked upon her as their precious and perfect daughter and had eyes only for the good.

But she knew the truth. Deep down inside, she had always known and felt it. There was _something_ different about her.

Something inside clawed upward within her dreams at night, touching all the secret places where thought dwelt. The feeling of the breeze out of her window as she lay awake in bed, the echoes of the night, the lure of the forest and the land of the ice she knew lay far beyond the horizon. Calling her. Speaking to her. Telling her she did not belong.

Gray stroked the front of his chin, watching her in her deepest thoughts. "You know what I'm talking about. Don't you, Sarah? That you and I are more alike than anyone realises…" His smile reached his eyes and deepened. "_Neither_ of us is what we seem..."

Sarah stared at him before closing her eyes, the blackness that enveloped her as she looked inside herself like another set of eyes looking back. Eyes so dark in their blackness it made hers want to slide right off them. Depthless. Soulless.

_Monstrous_.

She opened her eyes and looked across at him, the blackness she had looked into reflecting out, changing emerald green to darkest black, seeing Gray with new senses that pierced into him – _froze_ him – kept him skewered in place like an insect as he began to squirm, feeling as though he had miscalculated before he realised with euphoric trepidation that the person sitting opposite him was no longer Sarah Connor.

* * *

_Hope you liked it. I made things punchier in this chapter as the story is now getting into gear._

_Thank you for reading and please leave a review._


	4. Chapter 4

**NOTES**: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.

**SUMMARY**: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".

**DISCLAIMER**: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

* * *

**"Land of the Living"  
Chapter 4  
T.R. Samuels**

"What the hell were you thinking, Connor?"

Sheriff Bacchus finally blurted out the burning question after more than twenty minutes of silence between him and his unlikely prisoner. "I mean, were you even thinking _at all_?" He adjusted his rear-view mirror and saw John beyond the mesh divide, watching the forest speed by, his mind and attention a million miles from Bacchus and his state of arrest.

Everyone had thought John was such a straight arrow and an Average Joe – a family man with a wife and kid, a boring job at the construction firm and a regular king pin down the bowling alley.

Bacchus always had his suspicions though. Something about Connor just never sat right for him; the blurry past, his skill with firearms, the weirdness of that fine-ass wife of his and how the guy spoke Spanish like it was his native language.

When Connor had first moved to _Redwood_, Bacchus had done some checking. Not many people moved from the big city to their little isolated township and it prickled his cop's intuition. One of the first thing's he'd learnt in his line of work was to trust his instincts, and those instincts told him that there was something wrong about John Connor.

Was he running from something? Was he hiding out until some heat blew over? How'd he afford that house and those new cars on _his_ salary?

A discrete phone call to the Seattle Police Department the week the Connors arrived had revealed no criminal record – at least not in Washington. It had been likewise with the DMV – not even a damn parking ticket. To go any further without cause would have made too many waves and Bacchus had decided then, against his better judgement, to just drop the matter and give the kid the benefit of the doubt.

Not any more though.

Now he had probable cause and every legitimate reason to investigate Connor to the full extent of the law. When he'd arrived at the edge of the construction site and saw Connor leaning over the body he'd almost fumbled the chuffs off his belt – such was his eagerness to make the arrest. Everyone slipped up eventually, and Connor's time had finally come.

The minute he got back to the station and threw his ass in lock-up he would be straight on the phone to the FBI field office and start an official inquiry – find out where Connor really hailed from and what his story was.

He looked again in the mirror. The kid was still vacant and disconnected. "Well say _something_, Connor!"

John didn't even look.

Bacchus slapped the steering wheel, a part of him feeling suddenly despondent with the way things had turned out as he thread the loop through his hands and negotiated the Jeep Cherokee patrol car around a bend in the highway.

Despite his suspicions and roiling desire to know the truth, Bacchus had gotten to know John a little better over these past few years, and truth be told, he kind of liked him. He didn't seem all that bad a sort and had never caused any trouble – but his instincts and his duty as sheriff were clear.

A feeling somewhere inside him though sat uneasy, nagging at his conscience and the better angels of his nature.

Maybe he was making a mistake.

####

After another epoch of impregnable silence, the Cherokee returned to the streets of _Redwood_, whining to a halt outside the dour walls of the police station before Bacchus got out. He fixed his hat before opening John's door and helped him from the vehicle, holding him firmly by the upper arm as he led him up the concrete steps and through the glass and aluminium doors of the main entrance.

Processing ensued. Information and vital statistics were filled out on a form, prints and mug shots taken, all personal items surrendered into a plastic bag and his tie removed before he was shoved hard into an empty cell. John turned sharp and glared angrily at the overeager deputy.

"For what it's worth," Dawg began, a look of buoyancy about him, "If you go down for this, then be assured… I'm going after Cameron." The boy leered as the door to the cell slid shut with metallic finality. He'd always had a thing for Connor's wife and the eternal optimist beneath the snivelling wretch inside him dared to dream.

John took a few steps toward him and smiled down at the officer's diminutive, lacklustre frame. "Good luck with that, short stuff."

Dawg sniggered like an idiot and made his exit, mouth smacking as he chewed gum, leaving John alone with only his thoughts and the sobering town drunk for company in the adjacent cell.

He put his hands on the bars and leaned forward, resting his head in the grove and let out a breath of defeat, neither believing or understanding how everything had spun so completely out of control in so short a time.

Without a doubt, this was the _worst_ Monday ever.

In an outer corridor, Bacchus pushed the door to his office open and slapped a sliver of a file on his desk, tossing his hat onto the top of a filing cabinet before sitting down. Since processing Connor he'd been feeling progressively more like shit. Hearing that cell door slam home had felt like an exclamation point to the monologue of wrongs and usurpations he had visited upon Connor over the years, compounding his guilt until he found himself here – sitting at his desk, nursing three hour old coffee and the feeling that the world was turning upside down.

The deaths that had been occurring over the past week had kept him up at night and he'd been running close to empty, surviving on power naps and espresso. On his one side he had the oligarchic weight of the mayor's office pressing down on him for results, and on the other, the germinating vigilante element that was all for loading up on arms and ammunition to hunt down whatever man-eater was lurking in the forest.

The smart money so far was on a Grizzly, but as forensics and the local game wardens had already reported to him: this was definitely not a bear. Whatever had killed these people didn't act like one and had not left any of the usual signs.

There was little devouring of the victims and the attacks had come at intervals too short and locations too far apart to indicate territoriality or maternal instincts as motivation. The only commonality for each attack had been people alone in the woods at night and always beyond the limits of the town boundaries. The victims; two out-of-town hikers, a logging prospector, and now the guy at the construction site – all bent, spindled and mutilated beyond recognition.

If Bacchus didn't know any better – he'd swear he was hunting a serial killer, not an animal.

He'd left the construction site in the capable hands of his second-in-command and the forensic team were going to work. He'd have their report sometime this evening. _He_ of the other hand would have to deal with the mayor and the press. _Redwood's_ local rag had been on his case since the second death and their habitually half-assed crime reporter, whom usually spent his time writing pieces on petty theft and juvenile delinquency, suddenly seemed like he was gunning for a Pulitzer Prize.

In fact, he'd noticed a lot of that around town lately – people being more enthusiastic about things – more chipper and upbeat than what was usual and as a consequence they'd become annoyingly positive and proactive. It was like someone had spiked the water or something. _Hell_, maybe they _had_. It was just a crime that _he_ or his men didn't seem to be benefiting from it.

The phone began ringing on his desk. The caller ID said it was his second and he snatched the receiver. "What you got?"

"_Sheriff, it's…"_

"I know who it is, Jerry. I'm a whore for modern technology. What can you tell me about the body?"

Jerry took a breath, sounding somewhat uncertain. _"Forensics are telling me quite a story, boss,"_ he began with earnest, _"They're saying that this guy's had massive surgical reconstruction, or something."_

"Say what?"

"_He's full of like… _metal_. Like replacement parts, but much bigger than pins or anything… they don't really know. They say it's like nothing they've ever seen before."_

Bacchus frowned hard. None of the other victims had been unusual in any way and this was coming a little out of left field. The unexpected usually meant a case was either going to break soon and spectacularly, or become mired in even deeper mystery. He had to play this cool and by-the-book, he couldn't afford any screw-ups.

"Okay. Stick with it for now and have the body moved to the morgue as soon as possible. I want a full analysis by tonight."

"_You got it, boss."_

"…and Jerry," his tone skipped down several octaves, "not a word of this gets out. You got me?"

There was a noticeable pause. _"Yessir."_

Bacchus put the phone down and rubbed his face with his hands. He reached into his desk draw, rummaging around before coming up with a bottle of pain killers. He popped two of the yellow pills and washed them down with some cold coffee, reaching up to his collar and loosening his tie.

What the _fuck_ was going on in this town?

Out in the entrance lobby, behind a window of tempered glass, Lucy the receptionist was typing away on her keyboard. There had been twelve calls for the sheriff in the past hour, all of them from local newspapers and the radio station. Nothing out-of-town yet, but she knew it would only be a matter of time.

The last instance she'd seen things like this had been before Bacchus's time, when some old dear had finally lost it with her goat of a husband and blown his brains out with a shotgun. That had been nearly a decade ago though. Since then there hadn't been a single shooting or a murder in the entire town. That sort of thing just didn't happen in _Redwood_.

It seemed that finally the world had caught up with them and dark days lay ahead. Dark days, indeed.

"Hey, babe?"

Lucy started and looked up, startled by the man standing on the other side of the reception counter. She hadn't heard anyone come in and he'd taken her by surprise. She reached up and slid the window open.

"Y-yes… may I help you, sir?"

Lance leant his elbow on the counter and it was only then that Lucy noticed that he was dressed all in black overalls, wearing what looked like a soldier's combat vest over the top of it and had the white wires of some iPod earbuds trailing down from his ears.

"The sheriff in?" He asked it so offhandedly, like a person asked for the time of day.

Lucy didn't answer immediately, too distracted by the man's appearance, wondering for a moment if maybe he was from the FBI field office in Seattle – but Bacchus hadn't mentioned anything about them coming.

"Well… yes." She extended a finger down a corridor in his office's general direction. "He's in his office. Do you want to speak to him?"

Lance smiled and got off his elbow, his hands trailing down below the chest-high counter. "Not _exactly_…"

In a blur of shifting weight and body mass, Lance suddenly hoisted a huge USAS-12 automatic shotgun over the rim of the counter, pressing it into his shoulder and his eyes went euphoric as he took aim and fired.

Lucy was blown away with a deafening blast, flinging her and her chair backward in a mangle of splayed limbs and crimson spray.

John bolted upright on the bottom bunk of the cell cot, the muffled sound of gunfire familiar and unambiguous.

In his office, Bacchus flinched awake, his eyes snapping open from a momentary doze, not certain if what he'd heard was real or a half remembered memory from his time as a soldier.

Two deputies barged into the lobby, hands on their revolvers as Lance swung the shotgun around and Crowe stepped in behind him, raising a HK G36 assault rifle with the ease and grace of a consummate serial killer.

John found his feet fast as more gunshots rang out to the accompanying beat of machinegun fire, the certainty of what was happening dawning in his mind like an unstoppable wave.

Crowe stepped over the twitching bodies of the deputies, kicking in the door to an office and sprayed the interior with bullets, sending coffee, paper and wall plaster into the air as Lance moved down the corridor in the direction of the sheriff, picking off unsuspecting officers one at a time as they stepped into his line of fire.

Bacchus opened his office door a fraction, enough to peer down the corridor at the armoured black figure of Lance as he pumped round after round from the awesome shotgun's drum magazine, flicking out spent shells by the handful.

He pulled his sidearm, feeling the weapon's inadequacy as his heart thundered in his chest like a jackhammer and sweat beaded his brow. Who were these guys? What the _hell_ was this? Flashes of his service in the urban nightmare of room-to-room fighting in Baghdad surged vividly – that terrible feeling of being locked in and surrounded, danger lurking behind every wall.

The only consolation at that time was that _he_ had the superior firepower.

Submachine gun fire erupted again from the direction of the canteen and Bacchus saw red at the thought of more of his people dying, putting backbone into him and fighting through the bad memories until he was bold enough and mad enough to yank the door wide open, his towering form striding into the corridor as Lance corrected a misfire.

Lance sensed him and looked up as Bacchus aimed and fired, clipping the mercenary across the upper arm as he dove backward through the doors to the restroom and slid across the tiled floor. He growled painfully as the wind was forced out of his chest, feeling the cold of the floor penetrate his flesh as wetness soaked down his arm.

Bacchus reloaded as Lance smacked his shotgun, freeing the duff cartridge before he rolled over and put a blast of covering fire at the doorway. The sheriff went for cover, taking what opportunity he had whilst Lance was delayed and his sense came back to him to fall back.

He had to get everybody out. As many people as possible. Police and suspects alike.

His thoughts immediately went to Connor and old Fred in the lock-up, racking his brains as to how he would get to them with the gunmen barring the way. For now he just kept moving, heading down corridors towards the back of the station where the armoury was located in the basement, just off from the firing range and the underground parking garage.

Crowe kicked in the door to the cells, assault rifle up. He saw old Fred and pulled the trigger. The man dropped dead as the door at the far end of the corridor burst open, revealing Dawg toting a pump-action shotgun that looked bigger than he was.

The officer raised his weapon and fired, missing Crowe as the professional ducked behind a brickwork pillar. Dawg jacked the gun as he strode forward. Crowe peeked out and with calm detachment raised the rifle out and blindly fired a long burst that tore into the deputy's chest, flinging him back onto the unforgiving concrete.

Crowe stepped out and swept the rest of the cells, the bars making it short work. He only saw the one prisoner he had already put down so he pushed onwards, stepping over Dawg's corpse and through the door the officer had emerged from.

Everything remained still for long seconds of deafening silence, distant gunfire sounding as blood pooled across the floor in ever expanding masses and the faint trails of tendrilous gunpowder smoke coiled in the air.

That was when John chose to emerge from beneath the bunk bed.

He shuffled over to Dawg's body where it had fallen just outside of his cell and reached through the bars, grabbing the cell keys off his belt and began trying them in the lock. He heard more gunshots somewhere in the building, what sounded like a cacophony of .38s and felt relief that the cops were maybe now putting up stiffer resistance.

He finally found the right key and heaved the door open, feeling palpable freedom the moment he stepped out before reaching down, relieving the Glock 36 and some spare magazines from the Dawg's belt. The pistol felt good in his hand as he checked it and chambered the first round, suddenly realising for whatever reason that this was the first time in years that he was handling such a lethal weapon.

More gunshots rang out. Submachine gun fire and an automatic shotgun still going strong. Whoever these guys were they were hardcore, the smell of ex-soldier mercenaries strong in John's nose. He'd met men like them before – in South America and Mexico – men who had sold their principals and their honour down the river.

John clasped his hands around the Glock and got moving, following in Crowe's wake. It was a shorter run this way to the garage or an emergency exit, from there he'd hotwire whatever was available and get the hell out of there. Find Sarah and Cameron. He wished he still had his cell phone so he could call her.

He had almost reached the door when it suddenly swung open, stopping him dead as Crowe marched through unwarily, his attention fixed on changing his rifle's magazine when they almost collided right into one another.

John didn't think, there wasn't time.

There was no room between them to raise his weapon so he struck, lifting his knee and driving it hard into the mercenary's groin. Crowe growled in pain and dropped the magazine, his assault rifle falling on its harness as he freed his arms and tackled John around the waist.

An ugly struggle ensued as rusty skills and undisciplined proficiency went head to head.

Crowe lashed out a flurry of punches into John's arms and chest, planting a right-hook into his cheek and pushing him backwards.

The merc then went for his sidearm, ready to riddle the bastard who'd kicked him in the nuts before John shook off the cobwebs and bounced back, the pain that had been wrought upon him and an adrenaline surge bursting him into action.

John powered his fist into Crowe's face, feeling cartilage crumple as he gave him a bloody nose.

Crowe tried to recover, swinging wide, giving John an opening to drive his next blows into the mercenary's ribs, chin, sternum, then his ribs again, flaying the ex-soldier into desperate attacks that failed to land before Crowe made a fatal error and John's survival instincts took over.

As he swung in desperation, John sidestepped, forcing Crowe to overreach and then he struck.

His arm locked about the merc's neck, stepping behind him and kicking the back of his leg. Crowe went to his knees and John reached around, cupping his hand under the chin the way Cameron had taught him and yanked it sideways as hard as he could.

The neck snapped like kindling, cervical vertebra popping with a sickening sound before slicing through the spinal cord.

John released him and Crowe fell face first onto the concrete, his legs shivering as the body of the armoured mercenary slumped forward into an undignified pile.

For a few moments John stood stupefied, stunned at what had happened, not quite believing how easy it had been or how quickly the moves of killing a man had come back to him in a rush – the muscle memory of murder. The force required had been so little, the bone so slender and weak. It had almost been too easy.

A distant shotgun blast snapped him out of his fugue. He was still in danger and he had to get out. He had to get to Sarah and Cameron.

Stooping low he picked up his fallen Glock and made for the exit, moving quickly but with caution this time, gun raised and ready, negotiating the grim corridors until finally he found a fire exit. He kicked the crash bar, triggering the fire alarm in the process before bursting out into the open air of growing twilight.

"Connor!"

John looked back and saw Bacchus running towards him down the corridor. Behind him, Lance emerged from a doorway and went to raise his weapon.

"Get down!" John raised his gun, firing over the sheriff's head as Bacchus dove. Lance took cover, waiting for the lucky moment of misfire or spent ammunition before he'd move out, but it never came.

John kept firing selectively and one bullet at a time, counting his shots and putting a round across Lance's bow whenever the mercenary tried to look out from his cover. It brought the time Bacchus needed to reach him.

"Let's go! Let's go!" Bacchus squabbled to his feet as he got past him and the two of them slammed the door shut, taking cover as Lance splintered holes through the fire resistant timber.

Bacchus grabbed the hand holds on the side of a big metal dumpster, "Gimme a hand here!"

The two of them hauled the laden container on its uneven wheels until momentum took over and it rolled with the camber, smacking hard against the frame of the failing fire door and barred the exit.

They heard Lance run into it from the other side, flinging himself without regard in a fit of unhinged rage. The door held firm against the weight before a hail of automatic fire blew a circular opening to splinters. The dumpster stood firm though and a howl of frustration echoed.

"I need to get out of here and find my family," John said, pulling on Bacchus' arm to lead him away. "Get your car keys and we're out of here."

The sheriff grimaced as he tried to keep up with him, his hand reaching to clutch his side. "I'm afraid you'll be doing that on your own, Connor…" He stooped over and raised his hand, the palm and digits smeared with blood. "Here're the keys… and take my phone…"

Connor felt himself pulled in either direction, wanting to help but wanting to protect his family even more. For all he knew, more mercenaries were at the school right now, searching for Sarah. Cameron might be dead.

He snatched the keys and prised the phone from Bacchus' pocket.

"This is my fault…" He confessed. "They came here to kill _me_."

Bacchus pressed harder against his wound. "That thought did cross my mind…"

John looked guilty, but somehow Bacchus couldn't bring himself to believe that Connor had brought all this upon them, the sight of the kid taking and laying down fire for him as he ran for his life burnt clearly into his memory. His head swam with dizziness and he fell to his knees. John tried to reach for him.

"No!" He yelled and pushed John away. "Get out of here! Go help your family!"

John stood firm. He wasn't ready yet to abandon him.

"Get out of here! NOW!"

Bacchus pulled his revolver and pointed it at him.

John set his jaw and nodded, rising to his feet and taking off down the alley. He risked glancing over his shoulder and saw Bacchus double over, his revolver clatter away – he didn't stand a chance. But John didn't stop running. All that mattered now was getting to his family and getting the hell out of _Redwood_ whilst they still had the chance.

####

A portly man with mutton chop whiskers hoisted a Winchester hunting rifle in his arms, planting the stock in his shoulder and casting an eye down the telescopic lens, putting the heroic pose of a stuffed Grizzly in the crosshairs. The man wore a hunting jacket over denim dungarees, the price tag dangling from the collar, his balding head crowned with a bucket hat lined with florescent fly lures.

"Hmmm…" The man pursed his mouth, lowering the rifle and looking at it with uncertainty. "I don't know…"

Cameron felt the curious human urge to roll her eyes as she stood in a clerk's uniform behind the counter, watching the oaf of a man handle a succession of hunting rifles with the tell-tale flair of an enthusiastic amateur. He had been here now for over ninety minutes, agonising first over jackets, camping equipment, and now finally firearms.

"Sir…" she began with diplomacy, "any of these rifles is ideal for moose or deer hunting."

"I think maybe I'll need a handgun as well… for back-up."

Cameron arched an eyebrow. "There is a five-day waiting period for handguns, sir."

He turned to her then with a look like Sarah gave her when it was bath time. "Damn! I really wanted a back-up!"

She was tempted to ask if he was intending to hunt deer in Washington or Afghanistan, but instead chose to say nothing. She had learnt the hard way that her mouth, no matter how logically and reasonably she chose her responses, had gotten her into trouble more than a few times.

In the last five months, since Sarah had started kindergarten, and with little to do when John was at work – Cameron had decided to get a part-time job. Domestic chores and house maintenance were of little challenge to her, often completed in record time, and on the weekends John helped her in the garden. This resulting efficiency had left Cameron with hours during the day with absolutely nothing to do, and coupled with the fact that money was getting increasingly tight, she had decided not to sit around idle.

Thus began her first forays into the human workplace, though as she soon discovered – it was not as easy as she imagined. Between now and when she started, a mere eighteen weeks, Cameron had gotten through an impressive total of _nine_ occupations.

At first she had decided to start small, trying her hand at something she was already familiar with from her stint at Serrano Point Nuclear – some simple janitorial work at the local supermarket. Unfortunately, this had come to an abrupt end when she had apprehended who she thought was a white-collar shoplifter, breaking a bone in his forearm to quell his rather vehement resistance before frog-marching him to the security desk.

It was only afterward that she was enlightened to the fact that this particular 'shoplifter' was actually the store manager's son, whom often helped himself to the occasional can of Doctor Pepper before paying for it later.

Her dismissal was termed _'political'_.

She had been somewhat disheartened by the entire affair, but John had been supportive, prompting her into her next workplace assignment as a waitress… later demoted to busser… then complete termination. As it turned out, public relations and dealing with obnoxious diners weren't any of Cameron's strong suits.

Afterwards there had been receptionist, meter maid, librarian, cosmetologist, and bartender – all ending without success. But then finally, in a flash of epiphanic clarity, Cameron had found the _perfect_ occupation.

Working at the gun store had been a stroke of genius, prompting John's constant inability to fathom why neither of them had thought of it before. Cameron's detailed knowledge of firearms and her innate fascination with them had proved a winning combination, securing her foot in door and earning the quiet awe of the deeply conservative, NRA card-carrying owner.

Truth be told, her first day on the job had left the old right-winger feeling as though he were a gun control sympathiser – such was Cameron's adherence to and reverence of the Second Amendment. He watched her now from his office as she dealt successfully with her difficult customer, remaining patient and knowledgeable in her strange, Zen-like temperament that seemed to coalesce whenever she was surrounded by lethal weaponry.

"Okay, okay," the man said, stroking his beard before tapping the Winchester. "I'll take this one."

Cameron narrowed her eyes. "Are you certain about that, sir? It is, after all, one of our _smallest_ calibres."

The man looked up sharply – _worriedly_ – as though she had just commented on the size of his manhood. "What do you mean?"

She gave him an absent shrug, purposely betraying a look of pity the way John had taught her and how the psychological programming in her chip dictated as to how to manipulate humans.

"When I use a rifle I want to know I have plenty of overkill." The statement had the added benefit of actually being true.

"_Overkill_?" Now it was the man's turn to arch an eyebrow.

Cameron nodded sagely. "If I shoot something, I want it dead in the dirt. Daylight then darkness. You can only achieve that with a higher calibre rifle." She curled the corner of her mouth, her salesman's patter clicking smoothly into a seductive, feminine gear. "Nothing gets you off like that firm feeling of high calibre recoil…"

From the small office on the other side of the store, the shop owner nodded with approval, a satisfied smile curling his mouth as he folded his arms and watched Cameron work her magic, lifting the lethal black form of a hitherto concealed hunting rifle from beneath the counter.

"This is the Remington 700," She unbolted the weapon with a satisfying clack and handed it slowly to the customer for his closer examination, the weight of the awesome weapon taking him by surprise after it had been suspended effortlessly by her dainty arms.

"Twenty-six inch heavy barrel, five round capacity internal magazine, moulded carbon fibre stock, adjustable trigger from two to four pounds…"

She continued to list the weapons' features as the man looked over it with veneration and a growing tenderness, falling ever more in love as he listened to the hypnosis of Cameron's melodious voice.

"Alright," he succumbed easily, "I'll take it."

Cameron smiled her tiny smile. The grin of a winner. "Very good, sir. You've made an excellent purchase." She retrieved a brand new rifle from the secure cabinet and placed it on the counter, running up the total of the customers' purchases before taking payment.

As she instructed him to place his card in the reader and input his PIN, Cameron felt a vibration in her back pocket with the arrival on an incoming text. It would take the customer a few seconds to complete the procedure so she took the idle moment to retrieve her phone and flip it open, her thumb jockeying the keys. She didn't recognise the number, but the message beneath it was clear.

_DOWNFALL_

"There you go, but I still think I need a handgun…" The customer cut himself off as he looked up and found the other side of the counter deserted, the door behind it labelled _'employees only'_ bouncing on its hinges. The owner scurried over, bemused and embarrassed by his star employee's unexpected departure, hastily concluding the man's purchase before Cameron suddenly appeared again through the door, her jacket on and her messenger bag slung over her shoulder.

"Cameron? What the heck are you…?" He made the mistake of stepping in front of her and she firmly pushed him aside, putting him on his ass in the nearby stool. The customer went tall and stiff, pressing his back against a glass cabinet of hunting knives and compasses as she strode past, grim and single-minded as she headed out of the door.

Her mind was racing as she stepped out into the car park. Planning and strategising with what little information she had. All because of one little word. The message was a code of course – one of several she and John had developed between them, and only meant to be used in an emergency.

'DOWNFALL' meant to drop everything and rendezvous at home.

After arriving at several potential possibilities for John to send the message, Cameron climbed into the Liberty and turned the ignition, shoving the car in reverse and spinning it around, squealing the tires as she gunned it off the car park at cut across the incoming traffic, causing other vehicles to break sharply and lean on their horns as she struck out for home.

####

The ill-tended life line of uneven asphalt known as Glacier Peak Highway was fast developing quite a history.

Rumbling along the twisting road on unbalanced suspension was an old Dodge Diplomat, a hideous and profane automotive relic from the late 70s American car industry – its Etch-A-Sketch bodywork finished in gun-metal grey, its unnecessary width hogging the breadth of the narrow road. Beneath the hood growled an old and angry V8 engine its designer's had thought was a good idea at the time of its conception – exactly what the average, proto-80s American homeowner needed in the wake of an oil crisis.

Behind the wheel, oblivious and utterly uninterested in the history and aesthetics of his vehicle, a slender and athletic figure sat stiff and unnatural, perched to attention in the driver's seat as he mechanically worked the controls. The figure was in the shape of man, his form and features severe and unyielding, the cut of his chiselled jaw shaved to perfection so that not a single dot of stubble remained.

He didn't have a name or a designation as such. He'd never needed one. Occasionally people bestowed pejorative or ironic monikers on him, unimaginative things like _'tin man'_, _'metal'_ and _'skin-job'_ were common. But sometimes, because of the occupation he and others like him often employed as cover – they called him _Water Delivery Guy_.

More precisely he was a T-888 – the deadliest version of the highly successful 800-series of terminators. The mainstay of Skynet's elite forces and the scourge of the Resistance's _Tech-Com_. But that had all been a long time ago, in a future that no longer existed.

Now he served a new master. One whose power and ambition eclipsed even that of the machine-god's, augmented by a spite and calculating malevolence he had never before encountered – human or machine.

It was that same intelligence that had sent him to Washington and the middle of nowhere, to a dinky town in a remote valley known as _Redwood_ to link up with the mercenary forces sent ahead of him to pave the way. Delivery Guy had just left the lone gas station at the beginning of the valley, tanking up on fuel before calmly surveying the unexpected carnage he had encountered.

The style and disorder of the slayings had surprised him – as much as anything could surprise a terminator – he had expected to find the place untouched and unaware, easy pickings for him to cleanly eliminate potential witnesses that could interfere with his masters' plans. Instead he found a slaughter house that looked like the killing field of a pack of wild animals. It was one of the last things he had expected to deal with.

He'd had all the necessary equipment with him; plastic sheets and medical sponges to remove bodies and blood, a heavy steel shovel specially made for inhuman strength to dig a suitable mass grave in the forest.

He had only needed the shovel.

The mercenaries had deviated from their given mandate and become overzealous, endangering the operation and complicating the terminator's time table. The bodies had merely required removal and burial, but the splattered and soaked in blood on the other hand necessitated hours of carpet removal and elbow grease until all traces of foul-play were acceptably eradicated. It had been a painstaking and unnecessary complication.

There was no room for complication. The integrity of his master's work had to be protected.

The time was 15:27. By now the mercenaries should have enacted the second phase of their mission – the eradication of the only disciplined force capable of mounting an organised resistance. Assuming they hadn't deviated further, then by now the _Redwood Police Department_ should have been eliminated.

That meant that the mercenaries were no longer necessary. That meant they could soon be eliminated too. But not yet.

He glanced to his right as he passed a road sign. _Redwood – 10 miles._ He would arrive in town in approximately twenty-one minutes. Then the third phase of the operation would commence.

Then the rest of their forces would arrive.

####

By the time John arrived at the school he was sweating profusely. His shirt clung to his skin and the sound of snapping vertebra and the sheriff's final words kept ringing in his ears. The sight of the man he'd killed and Bacchus on his knees kept flashing in his vision whenever he closed his eyes, no matter how hard he tried to block it out, even when the world around him had begun falling apart.

For the second time in his short existence, he was guilty of taking a life. Worse even than that, he was guilty of leaving a man to die.

Then there were these mercenaries; professionals, cold bloodied killers, well organised and equipped. Who had sent them and why? How did they know he was here? Was his mother and Charlie alright? Worst of all – was it possible Skynet was not so defeated after all?

It felt that no matter how far he tried to run from it – no matter how much of history he changed – fate would always catch up with him.

There would be time to worry about all of this later though. For now, he focused on the only thing that mattered – getting to Sarah as fast as he could.

The tyres of Bacchus' bright yellow Dodge Challenger squealed to a halt outside the school entrance, putting a pair of smoking tire marks across the asphalt and John jumped out, leaving the door wide open and the keys in the ignition. He cut across the manicured lawn, walking fast so as not to draw any more attention than he already had, becoming acutely aware of his state of disarray as he entered the cathedral atrium that served as the school's main entrance lobby.

"Good afternoon," he put on a nice smile for the pretty receptionist, "My name's John Connor, and I'd like to collect my daughter, please."

The young woman nodded. "Of course, sir. May I see your parental-ID card, please?"

He stopped breathing and his stomach went cold. All of his cards and ID were in his wallet. They'd been taken when he was arrested. The parental-ID system had been a scheme suggested last year by the town's PTA board, to ensure only parents of students could gain access to their children during school hours. He'd voted in favour of it.

"I forgot to bring it with me."

She smiled and gave a little shrug, helpful and accommodating. "That's alright. Do you have another form of identification?"

"No… I don't. I didn't pick my wallet up and this is kind of a family emergency."

"Oh, I see. Just a moment then." She tried to look understanding, but rules were rules. She reached for a phone and started dialling.

"What are you doing?" He tried to sound as nonchalant as possible.

"I'm just calling the principal to come down and vouch for you. Only a senior leadership member is allowed to escort people to see students."

John grit his teeth, not sure if he wanted to laugh or explode with anger. He suddenly became acutely aware of the loaded pistol that stirred nervously inside his jacket pocket.

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm only getting her answer machine. If you like to take a seat I'm sure…"

John pushed away from the reception desk and headed into the school.

"Sir! You can't go unescorted!"

John didn't stop and the receptionist reached under the desk to hit a panic button.

As he made his way up the main staircase up to a main corridor, John tried to remember which way it was to Sarah's classroom. He knew that later in the day they moved the kindergarteners to another area of the school for some light Phys. Ed. But he couldn't remember exactly where.

"Hey you! Hold it right there!" The unfit security guard stepped out of an office and tried to bar his path, his hand reaching for his Mace, but John was in no mood to be trifled with. He pulled his gun, levelling it at the guy's head and the guard reached for the ceiling.

"Get back inside and lock your door. You stick your face out for anything and you'll never wear a hat again."

The guard obeyed without protest. The receptionist's face drained of colour and she ducked below her desk, grabbing her phone again and called the sheriff's office. It seemed to take forever before someone finally answered the phone.

"_Redwood Sheriff's Department, how may I help you?"_

She didn't recognise the man's voice but the significance didn't register as she reported that a mad man was stalking the halls with a gun and looking for one of their children. She told him that his name was John Connor.

"_I'll send some of my boys right over!"_

John scanned the windows of the doors as he passed by each classroom, certain that Sarah's would be here but growing increasingly pessimistic as he whittled them down to just a handful. Then at last he spotted Honeybun. He took a calming breath and slipped the gun into his pocket, careful to ensure it was fully concealed before smoothing his hair back and straightening his clothes – he didn't want to frighten any of the children. Sarah least of all.

Honeybun was taking the children though some simple stretching exercises as they all sat cross-legged on the floor, leading by example from the front of the classroom like a gym instructor. The moment John opened the door all heads turned in his direction, all of the children pausing in their exercises when they saw him.

"Daddy!"

Sarah must have been pleased to see him – she hadn't called him 'daddy' in years. She got to her feet and made her way out from amongst her classmates and he knelt down, scooping her up and hugging her as her arms went around his neck. He felt the walls he'd build around his heart to get through the last few hours crumble at the feel of her and their unconditional love. It was only now at this moment that he understood how his mother must have felt all those times she had raced to protect him.

"Mr. Connor?" Honeybun was neatening her hair as she approached.

John didn't give her a chance to delay him. "I'm taking Sarah early today. Family emergency. I don't have time to explain." Then without any further eloquence he stood up, holding Sarah tight to him and left the nonplussed Honeybun behind.

"Dad? What's going on?"

He kissed her cheek as he began walking fast back down the corridor to the main entrance. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I'm just taking you home to get mommy and then we're going for a little trip."

He noticed something then on her arm as it rested just below his chin. A mark on the anterior of her elbow.

"Are we going camping again?"

He looked closer and rubbed his thumb across it, recognising the fading puncture mark of an intravenous needle.

"Yes honey, we're going camping again." His face set hard and he stopped examining her. "No more questions, alright?"

She clung tighter to him. "Alright."

John reached the main atrium and could see the reception desk where he'd entered, the only thing standing between him escape the flight of marble stairway, the dithering receptionist – and a pair of black clad mercenaries striding towards the entrance. He couldn't see them clearly, not certain if they were the same individuals he'd faced at the police station or were even more of the same.

Kaufman pushed the doors open and barged inside, making a beeline for the receptionist as Neumann followed in behind him. The mercenary leader noted the odd look she gave their appearance.

"SWAT team, lady." He bluffed. "You have an armed intruder on the premises? Which way did he…"

Kaufmans' eyes caught sight of John at the top of the stairs and he smiled wickedly, drawing the silver form of his .44 Magnum like a knight unsheathed a sword. The receptionist took off through the doors.

John looked about frantic, but there was nowhere to run and no time to shift Sarah's weight in his arms to reach his gun.

"Well, well…" Kaufman stepped forward and raised his weapon, Dirty Harry in all but name. "Looks like we won't have to look too far… huh, Neumann?"

Neumann drew his Beretta, stepping in line next to his superior and raised it upwards at John, thumbing the hammer back ready. Then he pointed it at Kaufman.

"My name isn't Neumann…"

Kaufman had a split second to feel his life's regrets before 'Neumann' pulled the trigger, the shot echoing like a crack of thunder through the heights of the atrium as it blew Kaufmans' brains out, sprawling him dead on the floor.

Deafening silence followed.

Neither John nor 'Neumann' made a move as they simply stared at one another for long, disbelieving moments before finally one of them said something.

"_What_…" 'Neumann' began, lowering his weapon and shaking his head, not believing who it was he was looking at, "in the name of _hell_… are _you_ doing here, John?"

Fear was replaced by anger, tinged with a palpable sense of genuine relief as John's recognition finally solidified.

"I could ask you the same thing, _Derek_…"

* * *

_Sorry about the delay, I've been on holiday. Hope you enjoyed it._

_Thank you for reading and please leave a review._


	5. Chapter 5

**NOTES**: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.

**SUMMARY**: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".

**DISCLAIMER**: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

* * *

**"Land of the Living"  
Chapter 5  
T.R. Samuels**

John stabbed a key into the front door to his home and shouldered it open, the slab of veneered hardwood banging into paint and plaster with a splintering thud as he and Derek barged past one another into the foyer, guns raised and eyes everywhere.

John broke left into the living room. Derek went up the stairs. Their guns held in a ready stance as they cleared the house room by room. Derek hadn't known whether the mercenaries knew specific details of where John and his family lived, but it wouldn't be the first time Kaufman had kept things from him.

He thought about the merc's corpse as John had strode past it at the school, shielding his kid's gaze until he was well out of the door and beyond the gruesome scene of blood and brain splatter. Derek wouldn't mourn the bastard's passing for one moment, and his mouth drew into a wicked grin – Kaufman had always prided himself on being the guy that saw the big picture.

Someone should have told him that it was bigger than he thought.

"Clear!" Derek called down from the landing, waiting until John appeared at the bottom of the stairs and said the same. The mercenaries hadn't been here. At least not _yet_. Crowe and Kaufman might be out of the picture, but Lance was still at large – and if Derek was honest with himself – Lance was the one he truly feared.

John went outside and retrieved Sarah from Bacchus' bright yellow Challenger where it sat glaringly out of place on the driveway, holding the little girl with one arm as he re-entered the house and shut the door behind him.

The three of them congregated in the kitchen. John put Sarah in a chair and holstered his gun in the back of his pants. He put his palms on the cool surface of the same table his family had eaten breakfast at that very morning and took a calming, cleansing breath, his mind reeling from the last hour of death and anarchy that had blown a giant hole through the middle of his life.

Then he turned to Derek and fixed the soldier with a fierce glare.

"It's explanation time, Derek." John's voice sounded deeper and more assertive than Derek ever remembered. He even looked taller, more imposing than the teenager he was when he last saw him. "What are these mercs doing here and why are you mixed up with them?"

Derek stood by the kitchen worktop, taken slightly aback by the indomitable tone in John's voice and the unspoken accusation the words implied. It was as close as he'd ever felt to being brought before a court-martial and as John straightened up to his maximum height he suddenly felt as though he himself were shrinking.

He took a moment and clicked the safety on Kaufman's silver magnum, placing it down next to him on the worktop like it was a work of art. He had seen it lying there next to Kaufmann's corpse and he just couldn't help himself from taking it.

John spent the same moments looking over the uncle he hadn't seen in six years, noticing the things he remembered and what had changed; the greying hair, the tired wrinkles. For John it had been six years of peace and prosperity, for Derek it looked like it had been a decade of hard labour.

"I'm not _with_ them, John. I've _infiltrated_ them." Derek leaned back, feeling himself slipping into his true identity for the first time in months like a warm and welcoming bath. "I took the place of the original 'Neumann' to find out what they were doing. I got swept up on their mission when they were hired by Kaliba."

Johns' ears pricked. _Kaliba_. His mother had told him about them. He decided to use it to test Derek.

"What's _Kaliba_?"

"It's like a front, really. On the surface they're a technology company, but they're somehow connected to Skynet. The mercs used to work for Xe Services, but they decided to branch out on their own when Kaliba offered them more money than they could earn in a year just by doing one job. When I found out about it, I did everything I could to get on the team and find out why they're so interested in Redwood." He rubbed a stubbled cheek, looking John up and down. "I guess I know now."

John couldn't verify a shred of what Derek had just said, but he knew enough about Kaliba to make Derek think that he did. His mother had kept him informed.

He knew that Kaliba was the last vestige of Skynet that remained in existence. A conglomeration of what resources, technology and implements it had sent through time prior to it's destruction that now operated independently to further a new agenda all of its own. He had thought they were just corporate criminals and ex-military thugs playing with powers and technology they couldn't comprehend just to line their own pockets and put them in positions of power.

Left to their own devises they could cause mayhem, at worst they could upset the renewed hope and peace the world now enjoyed, and his mother's mission now was to take them down. It was the new adversary she needed to fight.

"You think _my_ being here had something to do with it?" It was a legitimate possibility, but John hated to bring it up. It made him feel that terrible feeling that he was the centre of the universe again.

"John, if they knew you were here, they didn't tell me. If they did, I'd _never_ have let them get this far." He swore. "I'm not even certain you _are_ the reason they're doing this. Kaufman kept everything compartmentalised every step of the way."

"What else could it be?"

Derek shook his head. "There is _something_ going on in this town. I don't know what, but it has to be big. Maybe bigger even than you. I just don't know. Enough for Kaliba to spend a fortune on mercenaries and send one of their triple-eights, that's for sure."

John felt another body blow as more nails were driven into the coffin of his family's life. "The… they sent a _terminator_ to Redwood?" All of his worst fears and nightmares threatened to come back at once.

"It's reprogrammed. I don't know where or when they captured it, but they scrubbed it the same way the Resistance used to. Made it loyal to them. It's what they do." Derek shook his head in disgust. "When you get right down to it, Kaliba is like a fucked up version of the Resistance."

_Or the same thing under different circumstances,_ John thought. Either way, he was satisfied enough by now that Derek was on the level and the way forward from today had been decided for him.

"I'm gonna go wash up." John announced and pushed away from the table. "Stay with Sarah."

Derek's eyes followed him as John left the room, watching as he patted his daughter's head, curling his fingers across her cheek to make her smile and whispered something in her ear. When he was gone, Sarah rose up and looked at Derek over the back of her chair, her little eyes moving over him in study for the first time. Derek stood still and tried not to look at her, feeling as useless and incompetent as he always did around small children.

"My dad says you're my great-uncle Derek." She said, rising up higher in the chair to better view him.

Derek found his tongue as he looked down at what looked like a miniature version of Cameron, not knowing how to act or feel as he tried to dispel his sudden feelings of uneasiness.

"Well I… I guess that's right…" He muttered, staying rooted to the spot and feeling embarrassed when his nerves got the better of him, nearly flinching out of his skin when Sarah hopped down from her perch and approached him.

The likeness between her and what he remembered of Cameron was amazing. The same hair, the same features, her jaw line and physical dimensions the robot's spitting image, shrunk to the size of a five-year-old. To Derek though, a soldier hunted and traumatised in the ruins of the forgotten future, she was as unnerving and unpredictable as her mother.

Not the eyes though. Those were Connor-eyes, and they sat strangely amidst the object of his anxiety.

Sarah gave him a vertical scan, noting the rake of a man's greying hair, scruffy beard and unkemptness before confidently uttering: "So what's so 'great' about you?"

Derek's mouth opened and closed, dumbstruck by the girl's brass and not even sure if he was being insulted or toyed with.

In the upstairs bathroom, John tore his ruined shirt open and threw warm water on his face, leaning heavily on the rim of the sink as the swirling water pinked with blood, feeling chilling sweat patches cling his clothes to his body. He shrugged out of his pants and kicked them to a corner before looking up, seeing the reflection that stared back and compared it to the one that had looked at him from the same mirror that very morning – a different John from a different world.

What stared back at him now looked sharper and flintier, the edges honed by disaster, adrenaline and the sound of gunfire and snapping vertebra. He hadn't seen this John in a long time and he hoped for the first time in ages that all the skill, training and muscle memory reactions had come back for the ride. He would need them before this was over.

He went into his bedroom and pulled out a pair of combat pants from the wardrobe, pulling them on and finding a comfortable dark shirt that fit him properly, not baggy or encumbering, showing the strong form of the man he now was before pulling a jacket over his shoulders. The old clothes almost felt like a uniform to him – simple and functional – serving him well enough during his time on the run with his mother, even if they had made him an obvious social outcast. For some reason, that thought made him smile in nostalgia.

Downstairs he heard the front door suddenly bang open and his arm went instinctively for his gun, cocking it before he even had to think as the muffled sounds of commotion echoed up through the floorboards like the sounds of domestic violence. There was shouting and a crash as a piece of furniture was turned over.

In seconds he was down the stairs and with gun raised he strode into the living room to find his soft velour armchair buried headfirst into a rack of DVDs, shoved aside as something with the momentum of a freight train had roared through the front door, into the living room, and now held Derek by his throat nearly two feet off the floor.

"Cameron! It's alright! He's with _us_!" John lowered his gun and Sarah scurried to him, hiding behind her father and clutched her arms around his leg, peering around to watch what was happening.

Cameron clenched her teeth and glared daggers of unrestrained fury into the rag-doll form of Derek as he struggled against her invincible grasp, the colour blooming bright red in his face as he fought desperately for his next gasp of oxygen and his legs dangled uselessly beneath him. The look on the robot's face was something he had only seen once before – in the eyes of John's mother. He didn't like it then and he liked it even less right now.

John moved behind her and put his hands gently on her shoulders. "Come on, Cam. Ease down. He's not here to hurt us."

"He can't be trusted, John," she said, her death-grip never wavering, "He's proved that in the past."

John didn't care much for the idea of defending Derek from Cameron. At one time he'd have been happy to see her beat him into a bloody stump. "I know, but we've got bigger problems to deal with." Hard logic always worked best with Cameron, then he added the clincher: "We need him… even if it's just to draw fire."

Cameron's grip began to subside almost immediately and Derek gasped in air, but she still kept him air borne. Her eyes narrowed at him and she brought his face closer to hers. "Stay away from Sarah."

She released him and Derek fell to his feet, toppling backward as his head swooned and landed in the same armchair Sarah had previously been sitting in. He gasped deep, sucking in oxygen as the redness gradually drained from his face.

"So…" He choked out a smoker's cough. "Now that the welcoming wagon's out the way… do we have any idea what to do now?"

Cameron moved over to Sarah and picked her up, holding her daughter against the safety of her chest and giving Derek a dirty look, like he had an odour that was offensive to her and it was stinking out her living room. John knew she wasn't happy, her memory of Derek beating him all those years ago probably at the forefront of her mind. It had occurred to him as well, and it made his next decision easy:

At the first sign of posing a genuine threat to Sarah, he would kill Derek himself.

The thought drew a dour smile out of him, wondering to himself about when and where he had become his mother.

"Yeah, we have a plan." He assured, looking over at Cameron who nodded her silent accord. "Let's pack what we need together. Then we're going to take a little drive."

Derek coughed again and shook his head. "We can't use the highway to get out of here." He objected, still rubbing his throat. "It's the perfect place for Lance to set an ambush."

John smiled at Sarah as he stroked the girl's head. "We're not taking the highway out of here…"

####

Patience wasn't a virtue that Lance subscribed to, but considering he was the only remaining member of his team, he was fully prepared to sit out the next few hours in the dusty loft of an old abandoned hay barn a mile outside of town. From this vantage point he had a clear and unobstructed view over a quarter mile stretch of Glacier Peak Highway and – much more importantly – the vital steel beam bridge that straddled the breadth of White Chuck River – the only route out of town.

He had deployed a pair of tyre shredders on either side of the bridge and on the crossing itself he'd set an IED made from a half-dozen Frag grenades that would turn anything that triggered it into shrapnel. It might even put the bridge itself out of commission, and as far as containment was concerned, that was all the better.

In his arms rested an M32 MGL grenade launcher, one of his all-time favourites, and whatever was left crawling around after a trip through his little gauntlet would have six white-phosphorous grenades on top of them in as many seconds.

As improvisations went he was pretty pleased with himself and his initiative, and with only one chokepoint in or out of Redwood he was confident that he effectively had the entire town wrapped tighter than an Eskimo's ball sack, accomplishing the last component of Phase Two single-handedly. Now all he had to do now was wait.

To Lance this meant only one thing: Miller time.

He kicked back comfortably in an old deckchair he'd put on top of a timber crate, raising it from the ground enough so he could watch the bridge and road out of the window. He grabbed a cold beer from an ice cooler he'd felt compelled to liberate and flicked the crown cap off with his thumbnail, feeling that rush of manliness he always got when he did that before pouring the cold liquid into his mouth. As his throat was rejuvenated from its desiccated state he spared a few thoughts for his fallen comrades.

Crowe was dead for sure. He'd seen the body himself and it looked like whoever took him down knew his shit. Probably that sheriff he'd taken out in the ally or that tall mofo he was with that'd took off in the Dodge Challenger.

Lance gripped his bottle tighter and took a slow pull of beer. That bastard's time would come.

Neither Kaufman nor Neumann had checked in for hours and he couldn't raise them on their phones or on the radio. He had to assume they were dead too. _Too bad_, he thought. It meant that it was just him left to hold the fort for the next few hours until the rest of the team arrived.

He raised the bottle again and took a languid drink as a thought suddenly occurred to him – if the rest of his team were dead, did that mean he would be getting their share?

That was when he heard a car approaching.

His beer bottle clunked onto the floor and he leant closer to the window. He didn't see anything coming in the dying amber sunlight. A few seconds of listening passed before he realised that the approaching car wasn't coming from the town at all. It was coming from the completely opposite direction. There was no window in this room that looked up the highway, and by the time Lance relocated it would have passed him. He'd just have to sit tight and wait for it to hit the stinger.

The smooth sound of tyres across even asphalt changed to scrunching gravel and a set of brakes whined. _'Holy shit!'_ They were pulling up outside the barn before reaching the bridge. He held his breath and listened.

A car door opened and slammed shut. Strong and even footsteps followed, getting louder and clearer as they approached the building.

Lance ditched the grenade launcher and double-timed it down the stairs, pulling his sidearm and yanking the slide back as he prepared for a close-quarters fire fight before whoever was walking up got the drop on him. His team might have been taken out, but he sure-as-shit wasn't going to be.

He took cover to the side of the door and waited.

The footsteps grew close, then stopped abruptly. Long moments went by in silence. Lance felt an ache in his fingers and switched weapon-hand. Whoever it was had stopped. Lance wasn't sure where exactly, but he was almost certain it was outside the door.

'_Son-of-a-bitch! He's trying to bait me!'_ Lance was really going to fuck this guy up. He hated being screwed with and after the way Crowe had been taken down when he had all the advantage, Lance was adamant that _he_ wouldn't be going out like a bitch.

Lance stepped out and peppered the door and wall with fire, shooting at chest height that blew a series of holes in a horizontal line across the rotting timber barrier. A cloud of mouldy particles and splinters clouded in the air, highlighted in the thin shafts of golden sunlight that streamed in through the bullet holes.

He ejected the spent magazine and reloaded, holding still and quiet for the sound of a falling body or a guy clutching an oozing wound to come stumbling through the door.

Neither happened. There was no sound or any indication that Lance had hit anything.

'_Fuck!'_

He stepped forward, reaching for the door as he kept his gun raised, ready to blow the head off the first thing that moved.

He didn't get the chance.

With a rattlesnake strike, a fist smashed through the timber slats of the wall and snatched the gun straight out of Lances' hands. The door burst off its hinges and a huge figure strode inside riding a halo of blinding sunlight, bearing down on Lance like a tank.

Lance fumbled for his back-up but it was too late. The front of his cloths were seized in a vice-like grip and he was thrown backward to the ground, the wind heaving out of him as his elbows and coccyx took the brunt of the fall and he stared up in panic at his would-be assassin.

The relief Lance felt in that moment was nothing short of spiritual.

"Ah man!" He cried, a big smile cutting across his face as the pain in his body was instantly forgiven and forgotten. "You scared the shit out of me, dude! How's it goin'?"

Water Delivery Guy stood over him in the doorway, looking over the weapon he'd snatched from Lance's pitiful human grasp with a passing interest before tossing it back to him. Lance caught it mid-flight, clicked the safety on and shuffled back to his feet.

"It's going to Redwood." The terminator answered as it looking around. "Where's the rest of your team?"

Lance shoved the gun into its thigh-mounted holster, shaking his head as he delivered the butcher's bill with characteristic flippancy. "Crowe bought it at the pig house. The last I saw of Kaufman and Neumann they were heading to the school to tie up a loose-end. I haven't heard shit from anyone since then."

Delivery Guy's head twitched to the side in the speed and movement that a bird would make, his eyes staying open and unblinking in the setting sunlight, calculating the new probabilities and variables before arriving at a course of action.

"I'll disarm the IED and stinger traps, you'll transfer your weapons and equipment to my vehicle." He ordered in a calm, tactless tone. "We will secure the bridge from egress and then proceed into Redwood to initiate Phase Three of the operation."

A look of defiance briefly came over Lance, the hackles of his anarchical nature bristling at the terminator's brusque assumption of authority. Then, in an uncharacteristic display of discretion, it occurred to him that that might be the quickest way to get his brains blown out.

"You got it, boss." He saluted graciously, suddenly feeling exuberant for the first time in hours about taking this job as he headed up the rickety staircase to start moving his gear. It wasn't until he opened the trunk of the terminator's car before his mood nosedived and he got a sobering insight into the true nature of Water Delivery Guy.

Sticking out from beneath plastic sheets amidst the pungent smell of chemicals were two pairs of naked feet, bloodied and paling, the length of the rest of the sheeting indicating that they belonged to a pair of elderly peoples' bodies.

Lance took a step back, flinching sharply when he noticed the terminator standing only feet away, looking right at him and close enough to reach out and touch him.

"You uh…" he struggled for the right words, "picked up some _souvenirs_, huh?" Lance's mind was awash with images of whatever twisted shit Delivery Guy might get up to in his spare time when he wasn't being a stone-cold gun-for-hire and, unbeknownst to Lance, a terminator.

Delivery Guy reached out and Lance went stiff, only to relax a moment later as the machine shut the lid of the trunk.

"There's space on the back seats." He said, seemingly unconcerned about the merc's discovery. "Store your gear there."

Lance gave a prompt nod of compliance and without any further adieu he dutifully began carrying out his new masters' orders.

####

Derek lifted a double-bit felling axe and swung it downward, splitting the stumpy log of Douglas Fir with a clean chop. The cleaved halves of timber clattered off either side of the cutting block with the satisfying sound of wood falling against wood, joining the rest of the pile that Derek had accumulated over the past hour. He wiped his brow on his sleeve, feeling aches in places he hadn't felt before, all wrought upon him by this menial task. He took a breather, filling his chest with a few lungs-worth of fresh, cold mountain air.

Derek had to hand it to him – John sure knew how to pick a hideout.

Before leaving, they'd packed the Liberty with what they needed; food, clothing, equipment, everything that had been taken out for the Connor's camping vacation. In addition to that was all the ammunition and weaponry concealed in the basement – all on Cameron's urging – least it fall into mercenary hands. What they couldn't take they'd either disabled or booby-trapped.

Once on the move they had headed in the opposite direction to Glacier Peak Highway and taken the old lumber road that had once transported millions of tonnes of coal and timber out of Redwood in its bygone era, following it until the neglected blacktop gave way to gravel track and eventually overgrown trail, the Liberty's suspension getting a thorough workout until they arrived around two hours later at their secluded destination.

According to John, his family had lived their first year after moving to Redwood in this old cabin, renting it from an elderly couple in town who had passed away just last winter. They had been surprised though when they discovered that it had been left to the Connors in their will, and rather than entertain the hopeless prospect of selling it, John and Cameron had maintained it as a place of emergency refuge.

As the sun made its final descent towards the tips of the mountains, Derek looked across the little forest clearing where the cabin sat, feeling a bit like an outcast where he was on the edge of the woods next to a small tool shed and firewood store, several large piles of un-split logs acting as a natural barrier that turned the area into an outdoor workspace.

His head twitched as he heard a girlish squeal and saw little Sarah run into view from behind the cabin, the dog running alongside her and John giving chase. His arms were raised in the air, voice producing a mock-roar as he assumed the role of scary monster.

Sarah rounded the next corner of the cabin, nearly running straight into Cameron where she was collecting clean bed linen from the washing line. She lifted the basket higher in her arms to let her daughter duck under, lowering it when John appeared and bringing him to a sudden halt. They talked with one another then, but Derek couldn't hear what they were saying. All he knew was that it ended with a lover's kiss before John resumed his pursuit of their nimble little daughter.

Derek watched them for a few seconds more before turning his attention back to Cameron. The robot had stopped walking and was looking right at him, clearly dissatisfied that he had paused in his work. Derek gave her a civil half-wave and what little he could muster for a smile. She didn't return the gesture. Derek was pretty sure that if she were human, she would've probably given him the finger. After arriving at the cabin she had made it pretty clear to him that he was expected to pull his weight, and probably a bit more, if he expected to be fed tonight.

He pulled over another log and placed in on the block, swinging the axe and splitting it. By the time he was finished, Cameron was gone, and John was doing an impression of a spintop as he swung a giggling Sarah around in a circle.

It wasn't really until that moment that Derek reflected on how much John had changed and how long it had been since the last time he'd seen him. Nearly six years by his reckoning. In that time John had found room to grow and mature on his own, and not just physically. _Everything_ about him now carried the weight of adult experience and responsibility. It reminded him of his kid brother when he was the same age.

Kyle never lived to see the family he and Sarah had started. Had never lived to see his boy become a man. But every time Derek looked at John he pictured him as Kyle would have been in another life. Happy and healthy. At ease with everything. His family the most important thing in the world to him.

No matter how hard he tried, he could never picture himself in a similar situation.

He also reminded Derek of his future incarnation too – a general with a head for thinking, planning and strategy.

John had decided that tomorrow morning they would be hiking out; up through a narrow gorge between Black Mountain and Portal Peak that few knew about, and then through the forest and valley beyond, making their way westward towards the ocean and civilisation. Food and water would be plentiful on the way and he was impressed to learn that even Sarah had practical knowledge of survival. It made him wonder whether John would have been better off on his own years ago.

Derek figured over uneven ground they'd make about three miles-an-hour, and if they went steady, they could cover about thirty miles a day. A few days in the great outdoors, a week on the outside, and they'd be hell and gone from this place. The bonus of the forest of course was that it gave them constant cover, protecting them from aerial surveillance and all but eliminating line-of-sight on the ground.

Tonight would be when they were most vulnerable by staying in the cabin. But aside from Cameron they all needed to be fed and be well rested for the morrow's journey. John assured him that the cabin appeared on no maps and it had never been held in public memory, always remaining a private retreat and as he had once cautiously confirmed at the town planning office – it had never been given official planning permission.

No records, no memory, no 'X' on a map. The perfect hideout.

Derek cut a few more logs before he heard Cameron calling John and Sarah in for dinner, pointedly ignoring him and Derek foresaw an awkward mealtime ahead. John had assured him that he'd eat, despite Cameron's dissatisfaction, and he had to admit he was looking forward to it.

He buried the axe blade in the cutting block and pulled off his gloves, trudging off towards the cabin on uneasy legs and smiling quietly to himself.

Tonight would be the first time a terminator cooked him dinner. He just hoped she used no more poison than John's mother used to do.

####

Lance breathed hard under the weight of his black tactical vest as he jogged across the mowed grass of Redwood High School's football field. He swung his arm up, tossing a burning green flare into the air, the copper sulphate stick spitting and spluttering a plume of acrid smoke and phosphorescent light, providing a clear landing beacon for the fleet of unmarked Black Hawk and Cayuse helicopters circling above in the night sky, rotors thumping against the night time vista of stars, forest and the pale waxing crescent of the moon.

One helicopter began to glide down, metal clunking as its side doors were opened and rappelling lines spilled from either side. Gloved hands grabbed the ropes, combat boots slid into position, and one at a time black-clad, ex-military mercenaries abseiled down to the well-tended high school turf.

Lance straightened up, thumbs sliding into the shoulder harnesses of his vest, a big grin on his face and a long grass stem clenched between his teeth, watching as more and more mercenaries landed on the field, spilling off in different directions to secure the area before two of them marched toward him, looking for a moment as though they were going to ride right over him before they stopped short and gave stiff salutes.

"Lieutenant?"

Lance inclined his head, figuring 'what the hell'. Most mercs had been military in a former life and the need for rank structure and protocol that had been drummed into them since basic training was tough to shake.

"Sergeants Carver and Sadler, reporting sir!"

Lance humoured their salute with his own half-assed gesture. "Welcome to Redwood, boys!" He looked over the sergeant's shoulder to where crates of equipment and armoured vehicles were being lowered from the bellies of thunderous Chinooks. "Phase Three of the operation is now in effect. Land the rest our troops and deploy as planned!"

"Yessir! Move out people!"

As the mercenaries broke off into a run, pointing and shouting orders over the roar of helicopter blades and downdraft, Lance was nearly toppled over by the weight of firm hand landing on his shoulder. He turned, ready to kick whoever had done it in the balls, before he recognised the stern features of Water Delivery Guy.

"Come with me." The terminator ordered.

Again Lances' instincts bristled at the machine's terse regard for him. "Where we going, big guy?" Lance had wanted to watch the rest of the troops land and figured the question was harmless enough.

Delivery Guy cocked his head to the side, eyes steeling as he gave Lance a look that made the kid mercenary feel like passing a brick.

"Come with me… if you _want_ to live."

Kevin Gray sat in a private booth in the restaurant of the Brewed Awakening, carefully and calmly cutting into his steak. The flesh was perfectly cooked: medium-rare with just the right amount of searing, perfect seasoning with sea salt and coarse ground pepper, cooked vegetables second to none. Locally produced, he suspected, the furthest flung ingredient probably sourced from no more than a valley away, leaving the condiments as the most exotic thing on the table.

The first bite was heaven. That hint of char-grilled ambience in his nostrils before the tender flesh touched his mouth; the succulence squeezing out of it as he chewed, the greasy indulgence of salted fat, the savageness of the bright yellow mustard, all extinguished by a mouthful of dark red _Cabernet Sauvignon_ with its exquisite tang to leave his palate born anew.

Down the aisle between the alcoves he saw Lance approaching with obvious anxiety, Delivery Guy following in his wake like an executioner herding a condemned man to the gallows. Gray set his glass down and dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin as the de facto lieutenants approached his table.

"Good evening, Lance. Take a seat." He gestured to the bench opposite him and without thinking, Lance slid onto it a bit too casually, like he was crashing on a buddy's couch and settling in for an ignoble evening of pizza and PS3.

Gray cast him an unfavourable glance like Lance was something common and inferior.

"You seem to either have a big problem with authority, Lance, or too much blind reverence for it," Gray began, his fingers coming together to form a steeple. "Your team attacked the gas station out of the highway without prior authorisation, exceeding the scope of your mission. Then you did it again during your raid on the police station by trying to kill John Connor. As a result, half of your team is now cooling in the morgue, another man is missing, and Connor is now fully aware and alerted to our presence."

Gray's recitation of the days' events was much too calm and to-the-point, making Lance feel distinctly uncomfortable as he made a retroactive attempt to sit up straight, feeling all the more vulnerable since Delivery Guy had disarmed him of his weapons.

"Why did this all occur, you may wonder, or indeed bother to ask." Gray inclined his head forward. "Let me tell you…" He pointed a long, well manicured finger at him, his voice never rising an octave. "It's all because _you_ couldn't follow your fucking orders."

Lance swallowed and moved in his seat, threatened by this man's disappointment, his tone of voice and the direction his monologue was going. Even more unnerving was the looming posture of Water Delivery Guy to his right, blocking his path out of the booth if he were stupid enough to try and make a run for it.

Then Gray's demeanour shrank back, his hands coming down to rest on the table and his face favouring him with magnanimity.

"I say that you may _seem_ to have too _much_ reverence for authority, because I'm considering the possibility that you were simply following Kaufmans' orders, despite the fact that they were contrary to your mission, and that you were just being a good and obedient little soldier." Gray paused to wet his throat with a mouthful of complementary ice water. "In addition, I've heard on good authority that you did a fine job cutting off any possible escape route out of town by mining the bridge and keeping it guarded. Well done."

Lance blinked, the tonal shift in his drumhead trial suddenly taking the most fortunate tangent that he could possible have hoped for.

He seized like a shipwrecked sailor seized buoyant wreckage.

"Yessir! Take the initiative, that's the way I operate. And I follow the orders of my CO like the word of God, sir."

Gray nodded approvingly. "Good, good… I thought as much. Better to let any foolhardy decisions up to this point stay in the past and concentrate on moving forward. Kaufmann, I suppose, took a calculated risk and paid the price." He reset his napkin to resume eating. "You'll be working for him from now on, Lance." He pointed a thumb toward stoic Delivery Guy. "He'll assume Kaufman's position in the operation from now on. You'll report to him and obey every order he gives you."

Lance felt his nerves ease considerably, his failures wiped clean by his small successes and the widely unappreciated virtue of holding lower rank. "Understood, sir. Thank you, sir." He could have left it at that, but as he stood up and hastily vacated the booth, something influenced by the inexperience of youth compelled him to continue speaking.

"You won't have any more problems from me, Mister Gray…"

Gray placed a slice of vegetable in his mouth and nodded over his chewing. "I glad to hear that, Lance." He then grinned playfully. "I'm also glad you decided to shoulder at least some responsibility."

The mercenary froze mid-stride, feeling one last lump of dread form in his throat. He realised then that by saying he wouldn't give Gray 'any more' problems he'd effectively admitted some culpability.

Gray observed Lance's discomfort with a kind of morose satisfaction, his face betraying amusement in his ability to make a borderline psychotic tremble, like wielding power over Lance and keeping him dangling like a worm on a hook was the greatest form of free entertainment.

Then he smiled and gave a casual shrug.

"Don't sweat it, kid. All's forgiven."

For the second time that day Lance felt the façade of his lawless self-image slip as he almost bowed appreciatively to his master's master and quickly made himself scarce.

"If he screws up again, just kill him." Gray instructed over another mouthful of food, this time roast potato and horseradish. "Where are we with finding the Connors?"

Delivery Guy stood like a sentinel next to his master, his arms hanging loosely by his side, feeling oddly curious about the display of human interaction, reaction and verbal interchange he had just been studiously observing. With just a few sentences that belied a grace and tact he could never hope to master, Gray had increased Lance's operational usefulness considerably, and it would probably be a long time now before it would be necessary to eliminate him.

_That_ however, the terminator had down cold.

"We've conducted a preliminary sweep of the town. I've ordered their home, workplace and known places of frequentation to be placed under surveillance."

Gray's fingers snapped. "Bring me a map."

The terminator turned obediently and looked around the establishment, stepping away from Gray for about a minute before returning with a laminated child's menu from the coffee shop at the front. On the back was a somewhat pictorial, but accurate depiction of Redwood and the surrounding countryside.

Gray cast his eyes over it as the terminator held it open, not pausing from eating his meal. "So if they're not in town, where are they?"

"They couldn't have left via the highway, the IED is still intact. It's possible that they're still hiding somewhere within the town limits."

Gray shook his head. "No. Connor's instinct is to run or fall back when he loses the advantage. You can bet he got out of town as quickly as possible."

The terminator calculated for a moment. "The forest?"

"More like somewhere located _in_ the forest. Maybe a ranger station or a cabin. Doubtfully something that shows up on any map."

"I can spare seventeen men to conduct a systematic search of the forest without prejudicing our commitments within the town. But over such a large area on rugged terrain, it will take approximately a hundred and forty-five hours to complete."

"That's too much time, and I don't want to risk the integrity of the project for Connor's sake," Gray wiped his mouth, weighing his next decision carefully. "I think it's about time the Connor's got acquainted with our secret little weapon." He sat back in his chair and finally gave the machine his full attention – the subject of his next sentence demanded nothing less.

"Activate the _Cerberus_."

####

Darkness shrouded the mountain forests of Redwood, the last tendrils of sunlight sinking behind the silhouette of Black Mountain like the bow rigging of an ancient sinking ship, leaving the lush, temperate valley beneath a twinkling veil of grey mist and moonlight. Nighttime was when the forest became truly alive. Creatures that stayed hidden and still during the daylight hours now moved freely through the labyrinth of tree trunks and undergrowth – migrating, foraging, hunting – the commerce of the natural world.

Derek's form was slumped comfortably in a creaking old rocking chair on the front porch of the Connor's cabin, his jacket collar turned up against the chill. A cloud of smoke curled around him from the amber tip of his cigarette, his eyes gleaming in what little light the moon provided as he kept his gaze on the edge of the forest.

Across his lap lay an HK416 assault rifle and a pair of night vision binoculars, the weapon's stock and barrel resting in the crooks of his elbows, ready to be seized at a moment's notice.

Twigs snapped in the undergrowth and Derek raised the binoculars, scanning the tree line to where a deer had wandered from the forest. It raised its snout and sniffed the air, catching Derek and tobacco on the wind and it immediately fled back into the forest.

He turned the binoculars off to conserve the batteries and placed them back in his lap.

Somewhere in the distance a pair of owls made their trademark call and he tried to shake his growing sense of uneasiness.

Inside the warm sanctuary of the cabin, John and Cameron pulled either side of the bedcovers over Sarah and began tucking the little girl into bed.

"Where are we going tomorrow?" She asked through a yawn.

John smiled, glad that their earlier playtime had tired her out.

"We're going on a little trip through the mountains, you'll love it." He promised. "No school for the rest of the week."

She grinned and he reached down to stroke her cheek. "I'll be back in a minute, okay."

John stepped aside and Cameron leaned to her, giving her daughter a goodnight kiss before joining John near the window where he looked out into the blackness of the forest.

"Sunrise is at 6:40am. If we start out then we can be through the gorge before nightfall tomorrow." He said, eyes never moving from the window.

Cameron put her hand on his arm and he turned to her. She looked so beautiful in the moonlight.

"You haven't spoken much since we left Redwood, John." She rubbed her thumb across his skin. "Are you alright?"

John made a sad smile and took her hands in his. "Yeah," he muttered, but to Cameron his tone said otherwise, "I'm just sorry it had to come to this. We got nearly six years, Cam," he glanced at the sleeping Sarah, "but it still wasn't enough…"

Cameron cupped his cheek, feeling the first bristles of beard as she brought him down for a kiss. It was meant to be gentle and reassuring, but the kiss deepened and became feverish, even desperate – two people needing to affirm that what they had together still existed and that the bond they shared was as strong as ever.

They _were_ still strong, and in another situation they would have gone to bed immediately and proved it.

"I love you, John," She said into his ear as they hugged tightly. "We're going to get though this."

"I know," he whispered into her ear, breathing in the smell of her hair, "I love you too."

They agreed that he needed as much sleep as possible for the morning hike, so John slipped his shoes off and slid into the bed next to Sarah, putting his arm around his daughter as she snuggled up to him, resting her head on the warmth of her father's shoulder. Cameron gave them both a parting gaze of affection before slipping out of the room to assume sentry duty with Derek, relieving him at some as yet undetermined hour once fatigue and human frailty got the better of him.

"Everything's going to be okay, dad." Sarah suddenly assured, never moving her head or opening her eyes. "I promise."

John was surprised she was still awake, smiling as he leant over and kissed her head.

"What makes you think anything's wrong, sweetie?"

He felt her head move and her eyes on him in the darkness. "Sometimes I just know…"

He had tried to protect her from the truth of what was happening by cloaking it with talk of impromptu hikes and kid games around the cabin, but it was he who felt foolish at the thought that he could deceive her. Sarah was so perceptive sometimes that he was sure she could read him like a book – and for a girl that could read aloud since she was four years-old, this was no great challenge either.

"… or sometimes my friend tells me."

John nodded, closing his eyes and tried falling asleep. Then he opened them and looked at her.

"Your _friend_?"

She nodded, putting her head back on his shoulder. John tried to think, pushing himself to remember something she had told him just a few nights ago.

"'_Charlie'_, right?" He recalled. "That was your friend's name, wasn't it?"

She nodded again through a yawn, feeling sleep tug at her.

"Does he have a last name?"

She shook her head. "No… I named him 'Charlie' because grandma's name is Sarah and _her_ friend is called Charlie."

John frowned and tried to process her logic, his thought train breaking when she patted his chest.

"It's _ironic_, dad."

"Yes, sweetheart, I understand that… it's just," he shuffled over so he could look at her more clearly, then leaned closer and whispered to her, like they were sharing a secret. "What do you mean that _you_ named him? Didn't he already have a name?"

She shook her head again. "They didn't give him one because they didn't care about him. He's just a _thing_ to them. He's not like any of us, but he tries to be. He'll never be able to though. That's why he lives in the woods."

John swallowed to clear a sudden dryness in his throat, feeling like he was falling or that he was eight years-old again and his mother had just told him a scary story.

What he asked her next felt like the most dangerous thing he had ever asked anyone and he handled each syllable like a bomb.

"Sweetheart… who _exactly_ is 'Charlie'?"

Sarah said nothing for a moment. "It's better if I don't tell you…"

"Why's that?"

She looked at him then in a way John had never seen before and shook her head very slowly. "Because it'd just frighten you."

The words were so succinct, so innocent, spoken with such certainty in her tender little voice – like she really was trying to protect him.

It chilled John to his bones.

Out on the front porch, Derek flicked the butt of his spent cigarette into the darkness, embers of tobacco lint raining from the projectile like a shooting star as the old Resistance fighter reached for a new one, thinking for the thousandth time that he smoked too many of these things. He pulled out his cheep lighter and rolled the thumbwheel, sending that momentary spark of flint before the long butane flame puffed up into existence.

Something was watching him from the forest.

The lighter clattered on the timber deck and he spat out his smoke. His hands grabbed the assault rifle, ignoring the pain the sudden motion brought on, and in less than two seconds he had the safety off and a spot on the tree line in his sights.

He held his breath and looked hard into the darkness.

The rifle had no amplifying lens and the night vision binoculars lay heavy against his chest, dangling from the strap around his neck, but taking his eyes away from the tree line for an instant felt like an invitation to suicide.

"What is it, Derek?"

The sound of Cameron's voice almost gave him a heart attack, but Derek stayed rigid and unmoving, his eyes holding fixed. Then it dawned on him quicker than most things did nowadays to his tired mind – the robot could see in the dark.

"Something between the trees," he whispered, "twenty degrees right from the tool shed." He gestured with his trigger finger along the line of the rifle barrel at a spot between a pair of straight, Subalpine Larch trees.

Cameron frowned for a moment, holding a shotgun loose in her hand and feeling sceptical. She would have known whether someone had approached the cabin or not, her superior aural senses designed to pinpoint humans hiding amidst the ruins of echoing concrete and rubble from over a mile away. She would have heard someone approach, especially a heaving squad of mercenaries, even from inside the cabin.

She looked out across the thirty yards of clearing to where the forest began, her vision cycling through to infrared. She saw nothing there, not even wildlife on the ground or even within the branches. Had she been human, that unnatural absence might have triggered her survival instincts.

"I see noth…"

"Quiet! Just listen!" Derek cut her off as he strained to hear.

Cameron listened as well, her ears detecting and distinguishing over a hundred different sounds; the rustle of the night air in the branches, the distant flow of White Chuck River, the tick-tock of the analog clock in the cabin's living room, and dozens of other perfectly normal ambient noises of inanimate phenomena. Then she heard something different.

From the open doorway of the cabin came a reverberating sound, like the rumbling of distant engine, so unusual and unprecedented that it took her a moment to identify.

The dog had started growling.

The dog _never_ growled. Not even at Cameron.

Cameron gripped her shotgun tighter.

Both of them whirled to their right at a sudden blur of motion that moved past the cabin, catching it in the corner of their eyes.

Something had moved across the thirty yards of clearing from the tree line faster than they could turn, disappearing behind the cabin.

There was no sound, like whatever it was had jumped or had levitated across the ground of crisp leaves and scattered tree bark, the only sign of its passing a sudden breeze that brushed into them like a wave, carrying the foul odours of carrion and wet fur.

Derek felt his nerve slipping as his flight impulse took hold.

"Let's get back in the house," he forced out in a murmur.

Cameron took a step forward to move off the decking into the clearing.

"Where the _hell_ are you going?"

Her boots touched bare earth and she glanced back at him from the open. "I'm going to see what's out there." Fearless. Maternal. "Stay with John and Sarah." Then she vanished into the darkness.

Derek wanted to reach out and pull her back, even knowing that manhandling her would earn him two broken arms. For the first time ever, he didn't want her to leave him.

He went back into the cabin and shut the door. The dog was still growling and John appeared from the main bedroom.

"What's going on?"

Derek shook his head and motioned for him to be quiet. John saw the look on his face and grabbed the Glock 36 he'd taken off Crowe from the array of weaponry and ammunition laid out on the kitchen counter.

"Something's out there. We're not sure what."

"What do you mean 'we'?" John demanded. "Where's…"

Cameron's body burst through the pine framed window on the east side of the cabin in an explosion of glass and timber, her arms and legs swinging out uncontrollably until she landed through the kitchen table, smashing it to smithereens and crumpling into a pile of splintered wood, furniture and splayed limbs.

"Cameron!" John scrambled to her side to check her. Derek stared mouth agape. Then his eyes were torn to the thunderous mass of teeth and black fur that roared towards the broken window out of the darkness.

In seconds it would be on them and on sheer impulse Derek stepped into its path, raised his assault rifle and released a hailstorm of deafening automatic fire that lit up the inside of the cabin like an epileptic rave. John took cover as the fire erupted, putting himself above Cameron as she lay helpless and unconscious.

Something gave an ear-splitting roar of agony as searing hot bullets of copper-jacketed lead tore through fur, flesh and bone.

Derek barred his teeth and kept firing, the mass of creature looming large in his field of vision as muzzle flashes revealed more and more of its horrific features. Teeth, claws, eyes as black as night.

Then suddenly it was gone.

Derek ceased fire and reloaded. Fast. John grabbed a pair of flashlights from the counter and switched them on.

"What the hell was that?"

"I don't know!"

"Where did it go?"

"I don't know that either!"

"Daddy? What's happening?"

John looked up to see Sarah in the doorway of the bedroom. "Go back to your room! Get under the bed and stay quiet!"

"What's happened to mommy…?"

"NOW!" John bellowed and he saw her flinch. It was the first time he had ever raised his voice to her. "Just go and hide, sweetheart. Daddy loves you, but we've got some trouble here." He said more gently, praying that she would just do as she was told.

Derek took one of the flashlights from John and snatched a roll of duct tape from the table, crouching on one knee to steady himself as he held it along the barrel of the rifle and wrapped the screeching scrim and polyethylene around them, securing the flashlight to the weapon.

"I'm not sure how much damage I did," the Resistance fighter tore the duct tape off from the roll and regained his footing, "I fired right at it but it didn't even slow. It's definitely going to attack again."

John looked down at the still unconscious Cameron, willing her to wake up, but he had to help Derek defend the cabin. He grabbed a Remington 870 shotgun from the counter. Metal slid against metal as chambers unlocked, heavier bullets and big game cartridges were swapped into magazines as they rearmed themselves.

_Ch-thump_.

Eyes and barrels swung towards the ceiling as something landed on the roof. The whole building shook and years of dust fluttered down from the rafters through flashlight beams as their boots chinked over spent shell casings. The dog growled and barked, but had the sense to stay with its masters.

_Shhh-riek._

Weapons lowered together as the sound of claws scrapping against tile left the roof and hit the ground, pointing off in different directions as Derek and John put their backs to one another, squinted through their narrow beams of light, looking for anything that would tell them where the next attack would come from.

"Dad?"

John whirled towards his daughter's voice, hearing it coming from somewhere impossible.

His face fell and the shotgun nearly fell out of his hands as his strength failed him, a look of abject horror etched tearing across his face.

Sarah was standing in the clearing outside the cabin.

"SARAH!" He yelled and burst into a run before Derek could stop him.

He hurdled the sill of the shattered window in a single jump, ducking beneath the trunk lintel and felt the cold night air wrap around him, feet slamming hard ground as he sprinted towards her.

"Dad! Stop!" She raised her hands in the air to stop him.

To his dying day he wasn't sure why, but John did what she said, skidding to a halt onto his knees only yards away from her.

Sarah smiled at him with bittersweetness.

"Do you trust me, dad?"

John nodded without any question.

"Yes, sweetheart. But I need you to…"

"Then trust me _now_." She implored, eyes pleading him. "He's not here for _you_… he's here for _me_…"

John looked over her shoulder and saw the creature emerge from the dark, its breath snorting into the cold night air. John reached for his gun.

"Don't! He'll kill you!"

His hand shook as he forced himself to stop reaching, eyes growing huge at the sight of the monster move into the beam of light he held trained on his daughter.

John saw teeth of jagged triangles, fur as black as the night around it, claws on either hand that curled on the ground beneath its lumbering bulk, curling swathes into the soil. The eyes were so black they were hard to distinguish, but he knew they were there in the triangular-shaped head, feeling their gaze piercing into him like ice lances nearly seven feet above the ground.

Then the thing reared up onto its hind legs.

"I'll be okay, dad…"

John felt tears run down his cheeks and his mouth trembled as helplessness consumed him, feeling his soul being ripped away.

"…I'll see you soon."

Giant claws snatched forward, closing around Sarah, and in an instant of lightening motion the thing and his daughter vanished into the forest and the night.

* * *

_Hope you enjoyed this rather belated update and I'm sorry about the extended break in storytelling. I took a rest from writing for a while to replenish my mojo, but now I fully intend to finish the story._

_Thank you for reading and please leave a review._


	6. Chapter 6

NOTES: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.

SUMMARY: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".

DISCLAIMER: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

* * *

**"Land of the Living"  
Chapter 6  
T.R. Samuels**

The Jeep Liberty roared out of the last giant pothole of the dirt track back to Redwood, sending a spray of mud across the windshield as the car levelled out onto a road of cracked blacktop. The wipers heaved mud off the glass, revealing the stony features of John in the passenger seat and Derek wrestling the steering wheel. Neither man had said a word to one another since they left the cabin; partly because they couldn't hear one another over the din until now, but mostly because of what happened after Sarah had been taken.

Even now, Derek found it all hard to take it all in, the rusty gears of his pragmatic intelligence grinding over things he never imagined he'd see – a girl of five with the guts of a soldier, a terminator beside herself at the loss of her child, not to mention that… _thing_… that had attacked the cabin.

One thing he _was_ certain of though – he was definitely back in John Connor's universe.

When Cameron had rebooted she had immediately asked for Sarah and John, finding the later outside, a shattered remnant of his former self, cradling one of Sarah's tiny slippers in his hand as he stared off in the direction the thing had taken her.

She had asked, then she had pleaded with him, growing ever more nervous with John's silence until she too has kneeling on the ground with him, hands grabbing his shirt and yanking him around to her. The look on his face confirmed everything she feared.

Derek hadn't heard what was said between them, the scene a grim reflection of the one he had seen earlier of the two of them standing together in the clearing by the cabin, happy and in love as their child played about them. There had been tears and argument, horror and despair. John had tried to hug her but was swiftly rebuffed. In those few minutes, Derek had seen more genuine emotion from the machine than he had throughout the entire time he had known her.

He had waited in the cabin and stayed away, methodically reloading and checking his assault rifle as he wrestled with the shear ambivalence of his feelings. Was he as upset as he ought to have been? Or was he satisfied perhaps at the thought of a schism between John and the robot? He found it hard to feel either way, or to even feel anything at this point. He was too shell-shocked to think about anything except survival.

He'd been snapped out of his thoughts as Cameron re-entered the cabin, shouldering a backpack and gathering an assortment of weaponry and gear before heading out, glancing at the tethered dog for an instant before releasing it and taking him with her.

"Where are you going, Cam?" John had asked as he rushed in behind her.

Cameron gave him a look that could kill. "To get her back, John," she'd growled.

"No. We need to go back to town," he'd tried to reason with her. "What we need to save Sarah is there."

"What could possibly be in _town_, John?"

"The person behind all of this! I know it!" He'd sounded so positive about it. "Sarah will be okay. She'll be alright!"

Cameron's anger had boiled over then. "How do you know that?"

John shook his head, for a moment lost for words. "I don't know… I just _know_. I believe in her. I _know_ she'll be alright. It's what she told me and I believe her."

There'd been no more words between them. Cameron's face clearly expressed what nonexistent faith she placed in unsubstantiated belief and human conviction. Derek had to admit, he agreed with her, and had casually stepped aside as she'd marched out the door. If Cameron wanted to leave, he sure-as-shit wasn't going to get in her way.

After she had gone, he didn't say anything. He gave John some space and silence to get his head together before deciding what they would do next.

"We're going back to Redwood." John eventually announced.

He hadn't solicited Derek's opinion and when the aging Resistance fighter went to raise his first words of objection, he got the wakeup call of his life.

The first thing he'd been aware of was something that felt like a wrecking ball as John had driven his fist into the side of his face. It had caught him completely off-guard and before he could regain his senses he was on his knees and staring at the floor, a high pitched tone ringing in his eardrums as John loomed over him and held his wrist and shoulder in an excruciating armlock that Derek himself had once taught him.

On some deep and primal level, Derek knew that this was his long-coming comeuppance for beating John all those years ago when he'd first learned about his relationship with Cameron. The justness of it was lost on him at the time as he beat the floor with his free hand in submission before capitulating to John's authority.

From that moment on he knew he would be the obedient soldier again. Live or die by the will of John Connor.

It nearly felt nostalgic.

Back in the present, as Derek concentrated on keeping the Liberty roaring down the narrow road, John was busy studying a map.

"They'll be a roadblock a few miles ahead," he decreed. "No more than two or three mercs guarding it." He folded the map up and slung it on the back seat. "They'll be unprepared and disorganised because this is a backroad. They won't be expecting to see anyone. Take advantage of that when you bring Neumann back from the grave."

Derek gave him a sideways glance, watching as John pulled out his Glock 36 and a stubby Colt revolver. "How the hell do you know that?"

"Because if _I_ was taking over a town in the middle of nowhere, that's what _I'd_ do. Keep all the routes in and out under guard, no matter how insignificant they are." He checked the two weapons over as he talked. "Pull over here. I'm getting in the back."

Derek whined the Liberty to a halt on the grass verge.

"When they stop us, explain that when Kaufman was killed you lost your radio and pursued me out of town into the mountains. Tell them that you killed me and have my body in the trunk. They'll want to look. You'll let them. _I'll_ handle the rest."

Derek's mouth opened and closed as John got out, almost forgetting to pull the release catch for the tailgate and get out himself. He watched as John lay down and got himself comfortable in the limited space before Derek closed the tailgate and got back behind the wheel.

A few miles later and it was like watching the movie to a script John had written.

There were three mercs waiting on the side of the road, grass stems between their teeth and their rifles slung behind them, playing a little catch with a football as they served out their shift at their uneventful guard post.

They got their act together somewhat when they saw him coming, but didn't reach for their assault rifles, especially when one of them recognised him.

"It's Neumann!" Derek recognised him. Mike Hammond. He was a former army lieutenant that had served in Afghanistan. Derek couldn't remember which division, but the two of them had swapped a few war stories over beer and cigars during his service undercover with Kaliba.

Derek stopped the Liberty right next to them and put on a smile. "'Sup guys!" He said, turning off the ignition and getting out. The three of them were totally at ease now and there were the obligatory bro-hugs and casual profanity that put everyone at ease.

"Thought you was dog meat! What the hell happened?" Mike asked as his two compadres grinned on.

Derek explained things just as John had told him.

"Holy shit!"

"You fuckin' kiddin' me?"

"Let's see him!"

Derek obliged them, leading the three around to the rear of the Liberty, all smiles and jocular. He clicked the button on the key and opened the tailgate.

The first merc fell stone dead with a bullet through his eyeball. The second with one through his forehead. Mike fumbled spastically for his own weapon before John shot out his kneecap and he went down ungracefully onto the blacktop in a pile of squealing agony.

John took his time getting to his feet, walking over to the wailing mercenary as Derek kicked his fallen sidearm away. John stood over him, looking down the same way a boy looked at an ant. Then he stamped his boot down hard on the merc's bloody knee.

Mike nearly split his lungs he screamed so loud.

"How many of you are there?"

Mike wailed and struggled for his breath. John twisted his boot.

"Don't make me ask twice."

Mike cried out again and began shivering before he cried out, "A hundred-and-twelve! There's a hundred-and-twelve of us!"

Derek's face headed south at the triple figure number. John's stayed hard and glacial.

"Who hired you?"

"Kaliba!"

"Who's your field commander?"

Mike wasn't immediately forthcoming so John stepped off his knee and kicked him hard in the stomach with his steel toecap.

"I don't know his name! We just call him 'Delivery Guy'!"

"Nobody else above him? No one else calling the shots?"

Mike thought and answered quickly. "Yeah-yeah! There's one guy! I don't know who he is… just his codename… _Jefferson_. He's a younger guy in a suit… I only saw him this one time… he was bossing Lance and Delivery Guy around."

John's eyes went darker and Derek rubbed the side of his face, feeling like John was making a beeline for the edge of the reservation, but he was too stunned to do anything and by then it was too late.

"Thanks for your help…"

John aimed and blew the top off Mike's head, sending brain matter oozing across the asphalt. He clicked the safeties on and holstered both side arms, turning to a dumbstruck Derek where he stood motionless next to the car, watching the final tremblings of Mike's dead body.

"Let's go." John pulled the tailgate shut and got back into the passenger seat. Derek followed a little later, markedly slower and having a sudden, desperate craving for the nicotine rush of a cigarette and a shot of Johnnie Walker's amber restorative. When he looked in the rear view mirror he was more ashen than he'd ever seen himself.

"Holy shit, John…" He rested weak arms on the steering wheel and felt sick.

John reached around and put on his seat belt. "I know," he admitted, almost callously, "I'll feel guilty about it later." He looked at Derek and saw the older man looking at him as though he were a stranger – a madman or a monster. It made his anger flare.

"What?" He snapped. "Did you think that just because I'm heading in the opposite direction that I'm not dead-fucking-serious about getting my daughter back? That I'm not doing _everything_ in my power to help her and make her safe?"

Derek's mouth fumbled around words it didn't produce. He had wanted to see this stronger, harder John for so long. Now he was scared to be around him. This John had a hair-trigger ferocity and bloody single-mindedness that was like a bomb ready to go off at the slightest provocation, especially if it involved even a hint of Cameron or Sarah.

"I didn't run off aimlessly and plan-less into the woods because _I_ know what I'm doing! That _thing_ took her for a reason when it could easily have killed all of us!" He looked at him with earnest, his voice coming to calm. "_Trust_ me… the key to all of this is 'the man from Kaliba'."

It sounded like something he had wanted to say earlier to Cameron, but was too shaken and unprepared at the time. John had had a time to collect himself and now Derek was bearing the brunt of his nephew's fear and frustration with his wife. It was how Derek finally realised how much John must truly love her – love _both_ of them – with an intensity and ethical flexibility that was frightening to behold and felt like General Connor had been reborn.

It scared the shit out of Derek.

Eventually he got the Liberty moving again, relieved when John told him to drive slower and inconspicuously as they covered the last mile or so toward the edge of town. It was a few minutes after that when John tore himself from a deep contemplation and slammed his fist down hard on the dashboard.

"Son-of-a-_bitch_!"

Derek looked over at him, the car swerving from his still frayed nerves.

"What?"

John grit his hind teeth and felt like a complete idiot. "Fucking _'Jefferson'_! That codename the merc told us!"

"What does it mean?"

"It means 'Jefferson' as in Jefferson _Davis_." He turned to see Derek's incomprehension. "He was the President of the Confederate States of America." Still nothing. "The Civil War? North verses South? Gettysburg?"

"_Yeah_… I've heard of the Civil War, John."

"It's not the _war_ that's important… it's the _leaders_ of it. Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln. It's how he sees the two of us… two leaders struggling for control of the same thing, but with opposing beliefs and ideas leading to inevitable conflict…"

Derek shook his head. "I still don't see what…"

"…Confederate soldiers were nicknamed 'Grays'because of theiruniforms. In the future, Grays are people who are allied with Skynet against the Resistance." He looked at Derek as though he should instantly understand. "Mister _Gray_! Kevin _Gray_! The bastard's been hiding in plain sight the entire time, just to rub my nose in it!" His palm tingled, feeling the imprint of Gray's hand when he'd shook it at the town festival only days ago and they'd talked about Sarah and her future.

Derek huffed. "Did you wrong this guy in another life or something, John?"

John managed to crack a humourless smile.

"Yeah… I think maybe that's it _exactly_. Maybe that's what this is really all about… proving _me_ wrong and _him_ right."

Derek looked at him, his brain feeling as though John had skipped two chapters ahead and had left him for dust. "Who the hell is this guy, John?"

John rubbed the stubbled chin and didn't answer. Instead he closed his eyes and let his mind sink deeper into thought, letting his logical and intellectual prowess coalesce the facts and summon the details that had gone unnoticed to assemble the jigsaw puzzle into a picture that would shed light on the mysteries and events that had plagued them over the past few days.

The wrecked car on the road. The 'bear' attacks. The body at the construction site with the metal skeleton. Mister-fucking-Gray. A township that acted like they were into the second week of a course of happy pills.

How the hell did it all fit?

Derek glance at him, shook his head and kept on driving.

He knew that somewhere behind those brilliant, emerald eyes was a brain beyond his own, beyond the mercenaries and Kaliba – beyond Skynet. It had won the war to end all wars in the desolate future and it could do it again. I didn't matter that Derek knew little about American history or that he preferred action over thought and words. All that mattered and all that was needed of him was to trust in John Connor and follow his orders no matter what.

John knew Redwood in and out by now, so he was familiar with the buildings and terrain. He'd lived and worked with the townsfolk for over five years, so he knew about all of them too. And John seemed to know both _who_ and _what_ they were up against, even if he hadn't shared it with him yet.

He'd been right about the mercs on the road – predicted their every move like he'd wrote the screenplay.

Out of nowhere he recalled a moment he and his brother had shared on the eve before the Battle of Avila Beach, when the Resistance had retook Serrano Point from Skynet. Kyle had confided in him about Connor's plan, showing him where the general said the machines would attack, why they'd avoid destroying the power plant, and where their own lines and positions would hold or buckle during the onslaught

"Doesn't mean a thing to me either," Kyle had confessed when he was finished. "That's why he's the general, and we ain't."

####

Cameron Connor wanted her daughter back and thought her husband was a bastard.

Aside from the fact that it was technically true, she also assigned all of the disparaging characteristics the insult implied to him as well.

Her palm held the stock of the M4A1 carbine assault rifle that was slung around her back, preventing it from flaying about as she raced over the uneven ground of Redwood Forest with murderous intent, hot on the trail of the family Labrador as it followed the pungent scent of the creature that had taken Sarah. Her own technological senses detected the odd tree trunk with stripped bark, snapped twigs and branches, the occasional metacarpal imprint left behind by something colossal and powerful that had roared through this way less than an hour previously.

She tried to concentrate on the job at hand, but her thoughts persisted with her infuriation with John.

How could he possibly decide not to go after Sarah? How could he assume that what was happening in Redwood was even _remotely_ of greater importance?

What was more important than their _child_?

Cameron had never been prone to anger or to be overtly emotional in any way, even when she _did_ feel strongly about things. She'd always secretly considered them to be signs of weakness. Despite what she might feel at any given time, she kept her feelings at arms length and preferred to experience them internally, barring only the most intimate moments with her husband, or the motherly affection she reserved for Sarah. Even then she was sparing, preferring to allow her actions to convey the depths of her feelings and to steer clear of the endemic melodrama that plagued human emotion.

But not today.

Today was the day her child had been taken from her.

From the moment she had learnt of Sarah's abduction she had worn her heart on her sleeve, releasing the pressure valve and unleashing the slumbering dragon of emotion for the first time in her life. Fear, panic, anger, hatred, disgrace, disappointment – a cauldron of alien emotion she was unprepared to cope with wisely, let alone distil.

Her anger towards John and Derek made rational thought very difficult; blaming them for failing to defend the cabin, blaming John for trying to convince her not to pursue the creature, blaming herself for her own inadequacies and for being defeated by it so easily.

That was when the fear gripped her soul, coming up on her like waves in the spaces between her anger, tightening her chest in an icy vice.

Was Sarah alright? How frightened was she? Was she crying? Was she cold and wet? Did she know that her mother was coming for her?

Was she _alive_?

That thought was despicable and she banished it immediately.

Then there was rage, riding the wave of fear and trouncing utterly all other emotion. It was potent and roiled and undulated inside her, feeling so much deeper than anger, pushing her into rashness and impulsion that were out of character. Rage smashed everything else aside and wanted vengeance and destruction, to inflict death and suffering upon the creature, upon the mercenaries, upon John and Derek. _Anything_ that got in her way.

All that mattered to her was Sarah. The rest of the world could burn.

The tip of a snapped branch caught the side of her face and cut her cheek open, but Cameron didn't stop. Even when her vestigial programming demanded that she abort and resume her pre-programmed directives, her feelings and uniqueness allowed her to continue.

All that drove Cameron now was the fury of a mother separated from her child and whatever stood between her and Sarah had a shared and singular fate:

_Termination_.

####

Many miles ahead of Cameron in the depths of the Old Forest, water dripped against stone and the smell of earth and dankness pervaded the land of shadow beneath a canopy of soaring trees, where shrubbery, grass and lichen eked out meagre livings on rocks and scraps of sunlight. The rays of mid-morning filtered through the dense foliage, shining down in pinpricks and narrow columns of bright yellow light – tunnels of light from heaven delving down into the Underworld.

Sarah Connor opened her eyes. Above her rose the tips of giant fir and spruce, swaying in the wind. She clenched her hands and felt hard granite on her one side and wet earth on the other. She clawed her fingers into the dirt, scooping up a fistful of earth and pulled it free from the ground. It smelled of fungi, rotting bark and a million years of virgin histosol.

She pushed herself up, propping her tiny torso on spindly arms as her senses returned and she looked around the gloominess of the woodland realm.

She was lying at the base of a jagged rock formation that towered more than fifty feet above her, the angry stones piercing out of the earth at odd and unfavourable angles like ugly, broken teeth. Moss clung to every ledge and crevice, tufts of grass on the lower slopes, the mighty trees that had grown around it forced to bend and accommodate the immovable shards of granite as they fought for space and sunlight.

At the base of the rocks was the entrance to a cave. A craggy split in the rock face barely wide enough to squeeze though, but it delved down and deep. Sarah breathed in, smelling carrion and dankness issuing forth from the fissure like the cave itself had breath.

The thing that had taken her was inside. She could feel its eyes upon her.

Sarah found her footing and got up, feeling patches of her soaked pyjamas clinging to her as tendrils of damp, chocolate hair clung to her neck and cheeks. Her bare feet felt the cold of bare rock, chilling her as a breeze picked up though the trees. But instead of crying or wrapping herself into a dithering ball, Sarah straightened to her full height, fearless and oblivious to the bitterness as she stood before the cave entrance and held out her hand to the motionless silhouette that was watching her from the darkness.

"Don't be frightened," the little girl said to the monster. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The creature shifted slightly but stayed within the cave, the tip of its black snout emerging briefly from the gloom before receding.

"I know you didn't want to do what you did." She stepped closer to it. "I known you only did it to protect yourself." She stopped just outside the gapping maw and looked up at the towering creature. "I forgive you."

It made no move or response, staying within the confines of its dark sanctum. Then after long and patient moments, it warily emerged into the daylight.

Claws the length of machetes came out first, curling swathes into the soil as they dragged against the ground. Then the snout and triangular head loomed outward on mountainous shoulders of musculature and bone, row upon row of jagged white teeth hanging from enormous open jaws. The eyes were even darker than its jet-black fur, depthless stones that glistened with tapetum lucidum and twitched with the involuntary sweep of nictitating membranes.

Whether it faced down a tiny girl or an entire army of battle-hardened mercenaries – the Cerberus was a formidable monster.

Child and giant observed one another for long moments. Cautious. Explorative. Fascinated by the sight of one another.

On one of the creatures' paws Sarah saw a bright streak of blood dripping between its claws, running down the curved ungues in ever-congealing rivulets.

"You're hurt."

She reached towards it but the creature shrank away.

"I _won't_ hurt you," she soothed. "Come here."

She reached again and this time managed to curl her hand around one of the enormous claws, moving closer to look at it as she placed her palms on either side of the spindly protrusions and gently eased the huge digits apart.

Where they met at the leathery mass of metacarpus was a pointed length of timber that looked like a spear-tip, imbedded deep in the creature's flesh. It was too inaccessible for its encumbered grasp, requiring far too much precision and careful dexterity to remove than its oversized mandibles allowed it.

Sarah reached out and tried to pull it.

A growl that sounded like thunder rumbled from the creature's gullet, the fur on the back of its neck standing on end and its pointed ears turned backwards.

Sarah gripped it and pulled as hard as she could.

The Cerberus roared into the sky, the sound shaking the very ground as it echoed off the rocks and caused birds and ground animals for miles around to scatter in every direction, fleeing for their lives.

Sarah clenched her teeth, pulling harder and adding a twisting motion to work it loose until suddenly the offending splinter gave, sliding from the deep wound in a spurt of blood and suction.

The creature clenched its paw and snatched it away, splaying it apart again when the action caused it pain and Sarah watched as the punctured flesh began drawing back together, knitting tissue and regrowing skin and fur in the time it took for the bloodied timber to fall from her hand to the ground.

It was then that Sarah noticed her own injury.

When it snatched its paw away, the creature must have scratched her with the tip of its claw, the needle-like implement possessing an underside as sharp as a kitchen knife. Her palm and a finger had been caught by it and a fine line of sliced flesh parted as she examined it, welling up with blood. The pain was cold and she was frightened, but almost immediately that fear went away.

Sarah gasped as the pain faded, vanishing altogether and replaced by an itching sensation she had never felt before, like there were insects crawling over her skin. She smeared the blood and gaped as the wound began to close, tendrils of torn tissue straining for one another until they wrapped together and drew each other in, knitting and repairing as the creature's had done only moments earlier.

In seconds, the injury was gone. It was as though it had never existed.

Slowly, she lowered her hand to her side as a buried part of herself took hold, turning emerald-green to blackest-black. She looked out into the forest, the world fading to a monochrome, seeing it the way she only did when she and her friend were together.

She could _feel_ the forest, could _taste_ it, _breathe_ it in and smell the blood and the fear that poured out of everything that ran or flew or crawled.

The forest was afraid of the Cerberus. The forest was afraid of _Sarah_.

'Charlie' had tried to show her these things many times – from that night when it had first sensed her, drawing it closer to the town than its master permitted, to the boundaries of the Connor home where it found her sleeping.

Sarah was afraid at first, but _only_ at first. She had watched it from her window in the dead of night as it sat amongst the trees and watched her. They had been cautious of one another to begin with, then curious and unafraid, both sensing something in the other that told them they were kin.

On and on this continued. Night after night. Then the time came when it finally crossed the threshold between their worlds, vaulting the tall fence and entering the Connor's garden like a wraith. A shadow of black that blended with the night.

Nothing had seen anything or heard anything. Not even Cameron with her rapier senses. Not even when it stood yards from where her parents lay sleeping and pressed its snout against the glass of Sarah's window to make her giggle.

That was the moment when they had met. That was when their friendship began. The same moment when unbeknownst to them – Kaliba had ceased to be the creature's master.

####

By the time John and Derek reached the centre of Redwood the midday sun was gleaming off the dark blue hood of the Liberty, its headlights and fenders looking like those of a rally car as they coasted unchallenged down the picturesque boulevard of Main Street. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and since their encounter with the three guardsmen on the backroad in – they hadn't laid eyes on a single mercenary.

Everything was so peaceful and uncomfortably quite. Everything looked so… _normal_.

A shopkeeper swept the sidewalk outside his store; a pretty woman with sunglasses sipped coffee in the Brewed Awakening's window; a worker mowed the grass on the town hall pavilion and a pair of kids playing hooky sat on a swing set eating ice cream.

Between John and Derek, the inside of the Liberty was a starkly contrasting capsule of life-threatening tension and uneasiness that seemed destined to spoil Redwood's tranquil mood as they cruised down the road like a shark fin off the coast of Amity Island. Automatic weaponry, fragmentation grenades and a litany of sundry equipment sprawled over the flatbed trunk space – spoils from the mercs on the road – their ballistic armour and tactical field vests now part of John and Derek's wardrobe.

"Man-oh-man, how much do I hate this…?" Derek mumbled as he gazed down the line of shops and oblivious passers-by.

John nodded, eyes scanning his side of the road. "I hear you."

"A hundred plus mercs don't just vanish into thin air. Where the _hell_ did they all go?"

"Maybe they're not actually _in_ the town anymore."

Derek scoffed to hide a nervy chuckle and shook his head. "You think a whole mechanised company of crack mercenaries is just camped out in the woods 'cause they didn't want to spoil everyone's sunny afternoon?"

John ignored Derek's tinge of sarcasm. He didn't buy his own speculation either, and the mercenaries wouldn't simply have left. They were still here somewhere. It was a certainty.

"Pull in that alley and park up." John pointed where to go and began undoing his tactical vest.

Derek turned the wheel. "What's the plan then?"

"We change back into civvies and do some reconnaissance. The Brewed Awakening is a pretty good place to start," he explained. "I know the people that run this place so we can talk to them… get something to eat too." The thought of sitting down to a hearty meal while his daughter was still missing made him queasy, but the training his mother instilled in him from the day he was born knew that they had to eat.

Derek's stomach was way ahead of him and without communicating any further they parked the jeep in the alley and changed out of their vests before carefully making their way back to the boulevard.

Nothing seemed amiss as they strode on, someone even said good morning to them, but Derek's gaze never stopped scanning the rooftops for snipers and John scrutinised everyone for the first face he didn't recognise.

The bell of the Brewed Awakening jingled as they walked inside, the smell of bacon and fresh bagels wrapping around them like a trawler's net, reeling them in to eat. Derek's stomach growled and he had no trouble mustering an appreciative smile for the very pretty waitress who promptly intercepted them with a killer smile and a pair of menus.

"Welcome to the Brewed Awakening. May I show you to a table?" Her voice was sweetness and light, enough to melt the heart of the stingiest diner.

John gave her a friendly smile. "Thanks. Can we have a booth near the back, please?"

"Right this way." She led them down the long diner towards the back, passing locals John had seen the day earlier and saw the old woman behind the counter who had served Sarah her cookie, poking bacon and cracking eggs onto a hot plate. He remembered her name now. It was 'Alice' something. She'd been here as long as he could remember and would talk to him about anything that might be off around town – one Redwooder to another.

A hundred or so wild-eyed mercenaries armed to the teeth, for instance.

He tried to catch her eye but she was busy, and before he could casually call out to her he was being ushered down into the booth opposite Derek and being handed a laminated menu.

"Our lunchtime special today is the steak sandwich with mushrooms and onion with your choice of fries or salad,"

She had Derek at 'steak sandwich'.

"Would you like some drinks before you order?"

Derek piped up as John didn't seem to be listening, too busy checking the place and the people out for whatever might not belong.

"Yeah, we'll have a couple of beers and two specials, please," he grinned.

The waitress grinned back, not merely in thanks for the straightforward order. She liked the cut of Derek's jaw line and the tattoos on his biceps. She'd always had a weakness for scoundrels.

"Coming right up." She chirped, and Derek watched her firm buttocks oscillate as she strutted off towards the kitchen.

Maybe Redwood wasn't so bad after all.

John kept his eyes on the entrance, spotting an old couple as they entered, recognising them immediately. The last time he'd seen them was a couple of days ago and as easy as striking a conversation with them could have been, they probably couldn't help him. Not considering where they lived.

"Y'know, John." Derek began, but John didn't look at him immediately. "We haven't really talked much since seeing each other again." He looked down at the table and toyed with the edges of his menu. "I just want you to know that I'm proud of you."

John did look at him then, sure he had misheard. "Huh?"

"I'm _proud_ of you," Derek repeated. "You've built a life here all on your own. You have a job and a family and you turned out real good. I know your father would have wanted this for you. Just to be happy and live a normal life."

John wasn't sure what to say for a few moments. He felt his heartstrings being pulled upon by Derek's sudden confession and it brought back the warm and welcome feelings of home and family that he worked so hard to suppress over the past twenty-four hours. It made him feel a little guilt for nearly beating the crap out of him back at the cabin.

"I appreciate that, and it means a lot that I'm living the life my dad would have wanted," He made a bit of a smile, grateful for a moment of cheerfulness in the middle of this huge mess, wishing not for the first time that it was all just a bad dream. He waited until the old couple passed them on their way to a booth before continuing. "When this is over you should stay for a while. Get to know Sarah. I think I can convince Cameron to let you stay in…"

John stopped mid-sentence when he saw the look on Derek's face.

"What is it?"

Derek didn't answer. He just continued staring past him at something behind him, the blood draining from his face.

John reached inside his jacket a griped the handle of his Glock before turning to look. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"_What?_" He looked franticly, seeing only the waitress returning with their beer bottles and the old couple getting seated. He turned back to his petrified uncle.

"Derek! What the hell is it?"

"Here you go," their waitress said, plonking the beers down on a pair of coasters. "Sandwiches will be right up." She trotted off again, but Derek never even acknowledged her.

"That old couple over there," he exhaled, sounding like he'd had a fright. "Who are they?"

John looked again to be sure. "That's Vladimir and Olga Kamarov. They own a gas station out of town on the highway. You probably saw it on the way into town."

Derek felt like he'd been gut-kicked. "You don't know the half of it…"

As briefly and as to-the-point as he could, Derek laid it all down. The stop he and his former comrades had made at the Kamarov's gas station, Vladimir's execution at the hands of Kaufman, and the mad dog slaughter Crowe and Lance and wrought. When he was finished, John looked very pensive, mulling over this new information and sipping his beer like he didn't care that a pair of ghosts were among them. Derek's eyes stayed stuck to them like glue.

Then John got up and went to walk towards them.

"Where the hell are you going?" Derek huffed out in a husky whisper, but John was already on his feet. When he reached the Kamarov's table he wore a friendly smile and noted the way the two of them were holding hands across the table. They looked happier than he'd ever seen them.

"Hi there," he greeted. "I don't think I can remember the last time I saw the two of you in town."

Vladimir and Olga looked quizzically at John, then at each other. Then Vladimir dropped a game-changing atom bomb into John's lap.

"Sorry friend, but I don't think we've met before."

John felt the walls of the diner move in tighter and he had to fight to restrain his blurted response. "You _are_ Vladimir and Olga? You own the gas station out on Glacier Peak Highway?"

Vlad nodded. "Sure are? Did you stop for gas before you got into town? I'm sorry, but my memory isn't what it used to be." He reached out to shake John's hand. "How are you enjoying Redwood? Have you come for the hiking?"

John had to steady himself on the partition that separated the booths. They thought John was a tourist. He'd known the Kamarovs for over five years, he'd stopped at their station many times, not least of which had been only two days ago with Cameron and Sarah.

Now they were telling him that they didn't know him. Now they holding hands and were in love again rather than at each other's throats.

If this wasn't a bad dream then he didn't know what was.

"Yeah…" he forced out. "I stopped by on my way in. It was nice seeing the two of you again." John extracted himself and made his way back to Derek, the older man paler than when he'd left him. He must have heard every word.

"What the _fucking hell_ is going on, John?" He implored for answers, wanting that big brain between John's ears to put it all together and make the world make sense again. Derek wasn't exactly prone to hysterics, but he gave it his best shot.

"I mean just what the _hell_ is going on? We've got the thing-from-hell out in the words that kidnaps your daughter, an army of mercenaries that vanish into thin air, a pair of dead selective amnesiacs and a guy called 'Jefferson' that has a personal grudge against you so wide that he orchestrated this entire shit-storm to rain down on you!"

John huffed with exasperation. "Tell me about it. I've never been so popular."

Derek leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table and looking John straight. "Just tell me… who the hell is 'Jefferson'?"

"What would you say if I told you that I thought every last person in Redwood wouldn't recognise me?"

Derek breathed out in disappointment, tiring with John's infuriating cryptology. "Why the hell would _all_ of them forget you, John?" Derek was tired now and just wanted some straight answers as he looked down at the table in submission.

John responded with an offhand shrug. "I don't know," he paused for necessary gravity. "Maybe because that's just the way they're programmed."

The word hung between them like a pin-pulled grenade and very slowly, nerves slipping back to a knife edge, Derek raised his head and looked at him.

John made a solemn nod and then sighed with resignation, an involuntary little chuckle escaping his throat. Derek looked at him like he had lost his mind, and then found himself laughing too, the incredulousness and magnitude of it all too much. He shook his head and reached for his beer, knowing from this moment forward that they were truly at the heart of the lion's den and their first wrong move would be their last.

"You mean the _entire_ town…" he began quietly.

"Pretty much."

"…every last one of them…"

"Uh-huh."

"…has been replaced by _terminators_…?"

John raised his beer before knocking back nearly half the bottle.

Derek did the same.

* * *

_Sorry again for the delay again. Work takes up the majority of my time and energy these days. I'll finish this story though if it's the last thing I do!_

_Please read and review._


	7. Chapter 7

**NOTES**: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.

**SUMMARY**: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".

**DISCLAIMER**: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

* * *

**"Land of the Living"  
Chapter 7  
T.R. Samuels**

Cameron crawled up the embankment of sodden ground, threading her way through the thickets of ferns, tall grasses and stinging nettles. Rocks jutted upwards just proud of the surface and there were hidden roots that liked to snag, stalling her progress until she silently untangled herself. Her clothes were a soiled mess, soaked through to her skin and flesh which beneath the layers of fabric were becoming bruised, stung and lacerated.

No matter how much it hurt, Cameron remained silent. Pain was a figment of the mind, and in Cameron's mind it was only a program designed to sense injury and as a trick to make her seem more human. A figment of a figment – but it still hurt.

She slowed to a miniscule crawl as she approached the rim of the slope, picking her moments to move when the wind picked up so as to drown whatever imperceptible sound she may be making. Stealth was not normally her forte, but like so many other things about her on this day of firsts, the complex creature that was Cameron Connor grew ever more sophisticated.

When she finally reached the top, very slowly and a millimetre at a time, she peered over the rim of grass and rocky outcropping to the wide clearing beyond.

She saw Sarah immediately.

Warmth filled her chest like an expanding balloon and she had to resist the urge to go to her.

Her daughter was sitting by a large rock more that five times her size nearly thirty yards away, using the jagged stone as a wind break against the stiff north-easterly breeze that chilled anything damp to the bone. Cameron switched her vision to infrared and saw her temperature was only just below normal, receding slightly in her extremities, but her heart rate and respiration were strong and steady. In her hands was a small fish of some kind, its belly cleaved open, its eyes and mouth gawking in a death grimace. Sarah was pulling pink flesh from inside and eating it.

Cameron looked around for the _thing_, but nothing else moved or radiated heat of any kind. She spent exactly a minute to be certain, scanning and rescanning in those 60 billion nanoseconds that to a terminator, whose kidnapped daughter lay only yards away, felt like an utter eternity.

She finished the last scan. There was nothing there except Sarah.

She switched back to visible light and was about to un-sling her assault rifle and climb over the rim when she froze, her body stiffening to the degree and mimicry of an inanimate object.

There _was_ something there.

It was only an instant of movement, but she saw it. _Something_ was sitting amidst the undergrowth. It was a bit beyond where Sarah sat, on the other side of the clearing. Something hiding and in wait. A gust of wind had moved a clump of ferns aside in the instant before it had twitched its snout and blinked.

If Cameron had been human, she would never have seen it. The infinitesimal motion more than fifty yards away was below the threshold of human visual perception, barely falling within her own ability to discriminate. She switched back to infrared and looked hard in its direction.

There was no heat signature from the creature.

She cycled through additional frequencies, applying filters to intensify colour contrast and increased the bandwidth of her visual processing.

Still she saw nothing.

She expanded deeper into the electromagnetic range, trying to detect the inescapable emanations of the creature's bioelectrical field.

_Nothing_.

Beyond the narrow range of visible light, the creature was completely invisible. How Derek had seen it the previous night was a mystery to her, but why she hadn't seen it and how it had taken her so unaware was now quantifiably obvious.

She switched back to normal vision and looked at it, seeing the creature so easily now she knew where it was. At night though it would be far more difficult, given its jet-black appearance and ability to move like the wind. No doubt that was the intention.

Something so large and powerful, yet so stealthy and in _so_ specific a manner, defied the laws of natural evolution. Its very form, comprising oversized claws and a disproportionate skeleton beneath top-heavy musculature around the shoulders and thorax that turned the thing into a living battering ram – it defied the harmony and elegance of nature's Golden Ratio.

The creature could only be a product of artificial engineering.

But engineered by whom, and for what purpose? Was it really connected to the mercenaries and the goings-on in Redwood as John had so vehemently argued? Was there far more going on in town than she had cared to see or realise?

Was John as wrong as she'd thought?

Cameron sank back down behind the embankment and took stock of her situation.

She'd brought her tried and trusted M4A1 assault rifle with M203 grenade launcher attached to its belly – a lethal and effective combination in most situations – but it felt wildly inadequate now. In her haste to rescue Sarah it was quite possible that she had sabotaged herself by not bringing sufficient firepower to defeat the creature.

If she was going to succeed in killing it and bring her daughter home, she would have to make every shot count. Put anything where it would do the most damage. More than that, she would have to do something that most machines found next to impossible, but something her uniqueness made eminently easier:

Cameron would have to be _creative_.

####

Beyond the clearing and the entrance to its lair, the Cerberus watched Sarah from the shadows between the trees, blending like the shadow of a wraith amongst the scrub vegetation and what little darkness existed there. It was at its most vulnerable during the daylight. The Creator had ensured that it understood that, and it wouldn't move again from the vicinity of the lair until well after nightfall.

It had caught the fish for Sarah from the waters that flowed not too far from here, bending the rules of its conditioning to provide a meal for her. It had secretly gotten a thrill from it – the alien feelings of nakedness and vulnerability it had never felt before as it had stood in the bright light of day out in the open. Normally it would never have done that.

Light was exposure and danger. Darkness was a shield and sanctuary. That was what it had been taught to remember.

The Creator had been strict in his discipline, punishing disobedience with a blinding pain he could cause it at will. A mind-splitting, white-hot agony that made it want to claw its own eyes out and gouge the agonizing Splinter from its brain.

The Splinter was what carried the voice of the Creator to it. It was what told it what to do. What made the shard of timber that had been imbedded in its flesh seem like nothing by comparison. It was what whispered the words and commandments that it had to obey if it didn't want to be punished.

The Cerberus' first memories of life had been when it was still tiny and newly formed. It had been put in a tall room of concrete walls and a mirrored ceiling. There its conditioning began; with obedience training, needles and injections, beatings from men with carbon-fibre batons or the electric sting of the taser.

If it disobeyed it would be punished, gassed into unconsciousness if it dared to attempt escape, then punished even more. At night it didn't stop. Throughout its times for rest, a cruel mantra was played through the Splinter, directly into its brain in the voice of the Creator, no matter how hard it clutched at its ears:

'Obedience_ is life. _Obedience_ is survival. Defiance will be punished, _obedience_ will be rewarded.'_

The process had been long and difficult for the Creator to sustain – but it had worked. Brutalisation had turned the Cerberus into both feral killer and subservient instrument. It grew to enjoy making things suffer, as _it_ had been made to suffer. It had made it like to toy with its prey and taste the fear and terror before tearing them apart, finding the beautiful red ambrosia that flowed out of them like budding flowers, the smell of it like perfume.

Sarah had been its salvation.

She had shown it only kindness and affection and made it feel loved. Where violence filled its heart, Sarah undid it with tenderness. And the Cerberus loved her for it. One day she would cure it of its fury and bloodlust and free it from the Splinter and Creator.

Inside it could smell that she was the same. _Abnormals_ and _unnaturals._ Wolves that moved amidst sheep. One in daylight, and the other darkness. They were a species of two and siblings in all things.

When the words of the Creator had commanded it to bring Sarah to him, the Cerberus was overjoyed. It had say-so to take her from the parody of a life she had with the humans and bring her where she belonged. With _whom_ she belonged.

In time, Sarah would become the Creator. Sarah would banish the Splinter and take its forced obedience away. It would serve its former master no longer and be obedient only to her – its own kin and kind - the way it was meant to be.

The Cerberus suddenly turned its head and tipped its ears towards the other side of the clearing.

It had heard something. Something that did not belong in the forest. Certainly not near the sanctum of the lair. It sniffed the air but smelled nothing besides Sarah and the normal scents of the woods. But the Cerberus was up-wind from the direction the sound had come from, and nothing would carry to it here.

It shrank back into the forest like a liquid shadow, circling the clearing in silence as it began the hunt. The sound was its guide, the signal it would home in on to locate its prey until it could smell or see what it was hunting. It was a sound it had heard before. The last time was at the cabin in the forest from where it had rescued Sarah.

In seconds it was on the other side of the clearing and it put its paws either side a patch of ground on an embankment. It thrust its snout to the ground, smelling sweat and clothes fibres and particles of skin. It probed the grass with its nose and found bent-over blades and the imprint of where something had crawled across the ground and looked over the rim at the clearing.

Looked over and had seen. Seen Sarah. Seen the lair. Seen the Cerberus?

It snapped its head around and snarled as it heard the sound again, teeth the length of kitchen knives clicking against one another. The prey was still close.

Branches snapped like kindling and bark was skinned from trunks as the Cerberus hurtled between the trees, moving faster than anything could move, stopping to reacquire the sound between bursts of movement until finally it was upon it. The sound was coming from the ravine.

The Cerberus knew of the ravine. It had seen it many times in its exploration of the forest, but it had never felt compelled to go in there. The ravine was very tall, taller than the trees, but was also very _narrow_, carved centuries ago by a river that no longer existed and barely wider than the Cerberus' shoulders. It hadn't wanted to get stuck, and they'd been no need before for exploration. But there was now.

It approached the entrance with a caution that seemed almost laughable; as though a thing of such size and strength would fear _anything_. But it _did_. Something felt wrong about this. It was as though it had been led here by design. But that was impossible. The Cerberus was the hunter, not the hunted.

It gave a thunderous growl to unnerve whatever was in there, drew its arms together, and moved inside.

The smell hit it like a wall. The prey was ahead, barely a dozen strides away down the twisting passage. The prey was afraid as well, far more than the Cerberus. Its scent was of fear and its yowling came faster now and more desperate as it in turn smelt the Cerberus and realised what it was up against. It growled again, the guttural rumble echoing off the walls of earth and the prey's scent turned to terror.

The Cerberus' blood run hot and giddy. Soon it would taste flesh, and it couldn't wait any longer.

The creature barged down the narrow channel, shoulders thumping against earth as it breathed heavily. No need for stealth any longer – the prey had no escape. Its arm caught up in a cluster of exposed roots until it broke free, lumbering onwards, drunk now on the smell of fear. It turned a corner and its eyes fell upon its next victim.

Next to another root cluster of a giant fir tree was the Connor's Labrador. It barking and whined furiously, wailing as it fought with its leash, desperate to flee for its life. The Cerberus' jaws dripped with saliva, the dog's fear so thick it was tangible and the creatures' muscles tensed to strike.

Then it froze in its own terror.

Granules of soil trickled down the walls of the ravine from above it. The dog suddenly stopped barking. The creature's heart, an organ the size of a car engine, began hammering in its massive chest, sensing the unseen danger that loomed above it.

A gunshot crack and a whistle of supersonic air came down and severed the leash that tied the dog with a single bullet. The animal broke free, running off into the distance as fast as it could ambulate and never looked back.

The Cerberus stayed rooted in place.

Moments passed, still and in silence. Then, more slowly than it had ever done anything, the Cerberus turned its head up towards to the slit of daylight.

Cameron looked back.

Gymnastic legs kept her straddling the breadth of the dinky canyon twenty feet above, hanging in near mid-air. She had a look of cruel severity, one that invoked fear, and she was pointing her assault rifle at the creature's head.

There were no words or motion. Just a moment between adversaries, unspoilt by mewlings or brash wit. Those things were human.

Cameron squeezed the trigger and the darkness of the ravine lit up with the muzzle flashes of automatic gunfire.

The Cerberus roared in agony. Bone shattered and metal splintered, slicing into flesh and organs as scalding projectiles shredded into its back. It tried to back up the way it had came but its wild flaying against the pain made it smash into the ravine walls, its immense strength bringing down rocks and soil that trapped it in a quagmire of mud and blood.

A grenade squealed, exploded, and the walls of the narrow chasm slumped into collapse.

Cameron jumped clear from her killing perch, rolling away onto her back and slid away across the mud from the slumping landscape as the ground gave way to fill the void, throwing up jets of evacuating air and soil that drowned out the death knell of the creature. Trees groaned and toppled as the soil fell away, their roots dragging huge granite boulders and a thousand tons of earth as the Cerberus was buried beneath a tidal wave if histosol, dirt and the giant trunks of clunking, ancient timber.

Sarah jumped to her feet when she heard the distant gunfire and explosion, looking around for the protection of the Cerberus as she heard humanoid footfalls approaching at speed.

Fear filled her at the thought of the mercenaries and she readied herself to run.

Then all her fear went away.

Her heart filled with the warmth and unbearable joy only a child can feel at the sight of a parent and she held out her arms to her. Cameron scooped her up, never breaking stride as she drew her daughter close to her and marched onward back into the forest.

####

The backdoor of the Brewed Awakening heaved open and John and Derek marched out. Their paces quickened as they emerged from the restaurant kitchens into the daylight of the alleyway and beat a hasty retreat back to the jeep. Derek's eyes were everywhere, sweeping as many rooftops, windows, doorways, mail slots and rat-holes as he could lay his vision to in search of hidden enemies. John stared straight ahead, face grimmer than an Old Bailey judge and left the duty of lookout to Derek.

"What're we going to do now?" asked Derek.

John held out his palm as they walked and it took Derek a moment to realise he wanted the car keys. He dug them out of his pants pocket and handed them over.

"_John_! What are we gonna do?" He tried again.

"I don't know yet. I'm still thinking." There was no wavering or anxiety in his voice, but Derek knew he was at least as freaked as he was. They'd landed unawares smack-bang in terminator central, and whether John cared to voice it or not: Derek knew they were screwed.

"If they wanted to kill us they'd have done it already." John thought aloud. "In fact, they don't seem to even realise who we are."

Derek harrumphed. He didn't care about the townsfolk's selective amnesia. "Maybe they're screwing with us."

"Terminators don't do that." John shook his head as they slid up to the Liberty. "We're missing something…"

Derek ran out of patience for John's mental processes. "Who fucking cares?" He yelled. "Cameron had the right idea! _Fuck_ this town! Let's go back to the cabin and pick up her trail. We link back up with her, rescue the kid, and then stick to the original plan to walk out of here through the mountains."

John glowered at him over the hood, half-ready to hop over the Liberty's baking bodywork and bitch slap the brain cells into Derek that God had deemed to leave out. "You want to go back in the woods with that _thing_ rather than face the enemy-you-know?"

Derek shrugged, too close to the verge of outright panic to be scared of John's temper anymore. "It's either that, or Metalville!" Then his tongue outpaced his brain. "Besides… you were okay with leaving your _daughter_ with the damn thing!"

John saw red. He slammed a fist on the hood and burnt holes into Derek. "Don't make me kick the shit out of you again, _old man_!"

Derek bristled visibly at the insult.

The wheel was coming off their reassembled alliance, but fear and words were making fools of them both. John could see it happening like a wobbling tyre, ready to ping its bolts and off-road them, but the weight of all that had happened and all that was _still_ happening made the way back to cooperation and rational decision-making ever steeper.

Derek's instincts were to head for the hills – and in Redwood there were hills all around them. Forested mountains lay on the horizon in every clear direction and he would give anything to be on one of them now. _Anywhere_ but here – the place where the stuff of his nightmares walked the streets like regular people, ate ice cream on swings and had lunch in restaurants, screwed and married his only nephew and made creepy little half-human children.

Every second he could feel the laser dot of a sniper rifle burning his forehead and the paranoia of constant surveillance.

If they lived to see sunset, he'd be very impressed.

"I'm sorry…" John suddenly raised his palms up in offered peace, his anger extinguishing beneath the greater weight of sagacity. "This isn't helping us. It's just making things worse."

Derek was never as shrewd or level-headed as his brother, and certainly not his nephew. He had to wrestle the anger down with more anger.

"FUCK IT!" He turned around and kicked a nearby garbage can as hard as he could, sending it and its vile contents flying. The sound of hollow metal hitting concrete and the wet smack of waste filled the alley.

John rubbed the back of his head and let Derek vent his fury. He knew he'd be better for it and be focused in a few minutes.

Fate didn't give them that much time.

"Problem here, gentlemen?"

The voice was a deep, booming baritone that sounded like a giant's war cry, sending both men whirling in unison in its direction. John felt his insides go cold.

Sheriff Bacchus stood in the alleyway just yards away from them. He had approached from the nearby street, somehow staying undetected, and one of his giant hands hooked a casual thumb behind his big leather belt as the other rested on the hilt of a holstered sidearm. He looked the two of them up and down from his six-foot vantage point, broad shoulders and flexed biceps granting him a poise and confidence that was as steady as a rock. His badge and gun felt almost superfluous.

"No officer. We were just leaving." John spoke respectfully, wary of Derek in his peripheral vision sliding for his own sidearm.

Bacchus looked over the rim of his sunglasses at the beaten trash can.

"I guess you boys had some issues to work out." He looked back to them with an effortless scorn. "Glad you took it outside, but that doesn't mean you can disturb the peace or cause criminal damage."

John had the wherewithal to look suitably chastised. Not a difficult task since it was clear by now that Bacchus had no more memory of him than Vladimir or Olga. The man had saved his life not twelve hours earlier, but he looked at him now the same way he did when they'd first met more than five years ago: like a city-dwelling outsider that was stinking up the place.

"Bacchus." John blurted out, deciding to seize the bull by the horns and get some answers. "Sheriff _Angus_ Bacchus."

The sheriff stiffened and gave him a look. Bacchus hated his first name and he rue the day John had learnt it.

"We know one another, sir?"

John stepped between him and Derek as the resistance fighter stopped reaching for his weapon and gave the back of his nephew's head an uncertain look.

"We _did_ know one another." He said the next part very carefully. "You arrested me once."

Bacchus didn't move for a moment. Then he slid his sunglasses to the end of his nose and took in John's features more clearly. "It must have been a long time ago. Weren't you wearing the right type of crash helmet for your pushbike?"

A snort of laughter came from Derek's direction and even Bacchus grinned at his own joke. John smiled thinly, but stayed calm and serious. His approach was already working – Bacchus no longer had his hand on his gun and was looking more at ease.

Past John and Bacchus, Derek turned his eyes to something at the far end of the alley and his smile vanished.

A pair of plain-clothed men were approaching them. Their demeanour looked too casual and unnatural and they moved parallel to one another up either side of the alley. Their eyes where on them and they had the distinctive swagger of ex-military about them that put the fetid smell of mercenary up Derek's nostrils.

"John…" he warned.

John had already seen them and knew he had to extricate them from the sheriff as quickly as possible.

"We're sorry for the disturbance, officer. We'll be on our way."

Bacchus felt his stomach rumble. He was on his way to lunch and he had no intention of his steak sandwich being delayed by lecturing these guys on their minor infraction. A quick warning would suffice:

"Steer clear of trouble when you're in Redwood, fellas. You'll find more than you can handle."

A few minutes later, when he and Derek were safely back in the Liberty and driving off down the street, John thought that truer words had never been spoken.

"So what are we going to do then?" Derek asked, more calm and rationally this time. "And don't give me the silent treatment or some bullshit Civil War analogy! Give it to me in plain English!"

John took a breath and kept looking ahead. He supposed he owed Derek as much as he'd asked for.

"The first thing we do is ditch the jeep. Then we break into Bacchus's house and wait for him to come home tonight. We capture him, take out his chip, plug it into the CPU adapter I've got stored in a shoebox in my attic and use the Cyberdyne-OS emulator I wrote on my old laptop to hack the encryption. _Then_ we find out what's been going on in this town." He turned to look at him. "Satisfied?"

If it had been John's mother driving rather than his uncle, she'd have probably crashed the car. Derek just looked as though he'd gone onto autopilot.

Then a toothy grin cracked across his course jaw line.

"That'll do."

####

When Cameron found the ranger station atop of the granite hills of Chetwot Point, it was almost nightfall. The quaint log shack doubled as a service station for Redwood's radio mast that sprouted behind it from a half-buried pedestal of reinforced concrete in a latticework of cold grey steel, far beyond the ceiling of the forest canopy until its lofty summit dipped into radio waves. A dusty dirt track led away through the trees, joining at some point after many miles of its serpentine path with the one the Connors had used a day earlier to reach their hideaway cabin.

Cameron gave the shack and surrounding landscape an infrared scan – nothing there – but she was beginning to think that such precautions were becoming obsolete in the face of their new and radical enemy. The relatively level playing field they had been used to fighting with Skynet across the gulf of time was slipping, replaced with a dynamic and all too resourceful new nemesis that commanded legions of hired mercenaries, access to future technology and a creature unlike anything Cameron had ever encountered.

She held Sarah under one arm as she approached the front door to the shack and twisted its giant padlock like a faucet capstan, winding the loop of steel shank into a crisscrossing braid until it crumpled to malleable material. She entered and closed the door, taking in the rustic interior and its starkly modern contents with a cataloguing eye.

There was a tiny kitchenette at one end of the single room building, with a first aid station and laminate worktop. A few chairs and a table sat in the middle of the room, a wood burner in the corner and an old couch in front of it. The far end of the shack was dominated by a dozen sealed electrical panels, all mounted on the wall – obviously they were connected with the mast's operation.

Cameron went to the kitchenette and sat Sarah down on the worktop, slinging her backpack down and placing her assault rifle upright against the wall. She pulled back from her daughter, seeing dried tears on the little girl's face and a staring, vacant expression.

"Are you hurt?" Cameron asked softly, fingers brushing up and down her little arms.

Sarah shook her head slowly, looking as though she might burst into tears.

Cameron felt a surge of protectiveness and she cupped the girl's cheeks in her powerful hands, placing a delicate kiss on her forehead and giving her a reassuring smile.

She wet a clean cloth in the sink, using it to gently rub away the tears and dirt from her daughter's hands and face. When she was clean, Cameron opened the first aid box on the wall, taking a packet of antiseptic wipes and using them over everywhere she had just cleaned until Sarah's skin was pink and disinfected. In her backpack, she had brought a clean change of clothes and with Sarah's minimal input, she disrobed her from her ruined nightwear and pulled her into a woolly sweater lined with polar fleece and a pair of her favourite jeans. On her feet she slid thick woolly socks and put fleece mittens on her hands before crowning her with a fluffy tuque that tucked down over the tips of her ears.

"Are you dehydrated? Do you want something to eat?" The concern in her voice and the air of fret about her belied the taciturn manner in which the words were spoken.

Sarah was clearly upset, perhaps in shock even, but Cameron was uncertain as the nature of her sadness. She was safe and with her mother again. She was clean and warm and out of the clutches of mercenaries and monsters. She wished that John was here – he would know exactly what was wrong and what to do about it. John _always_ knew what to do. Without him, Cameron would have to take a chance at an appropriate remedy: so she chose the most powerful she could think of.

"I love you." She vowed, taking Sarah's hands in hers and looked into her eyes. "I'm greatly relived that you haven't been physically harmed, but I understand that you may be hurt inside. I promise: I will _never_ allow you to be taken like that again or be placed in danger. And it's alright if you want to cry."

Cameron rue her incompetence. Years of marriage and motherhood and she still hadn't mastered the basic ability to articulate her feelings or to speak with the eloquence and earnestness that John found so easy. Sarah and he had such an effortless rapport that was so knowing and intimate it seemed to border on telepathy. _She_ felt like she was trying to do brain surgery with a shotgun. Her worst fear had always been that Sarah would think of her as cold and unemotional – worst of all that she didn't care for her or love her utterly. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sarah was silent for a while before she looked up and said something that Cameron hadn't heard in years.

"_Mommy_…"

Cameron felt something that made her earlier surge of protectiveness fade to insignificance. It swelled up inside her chest like a balloon filled with burning helium, lifting her up and heating her and making her head swim with something that resembled the human symptoms of vertigo. It made her want to kill everything in the entire universe that dared looked at Sarah the wrong way.

She wrapped her arms around her as the girl crushed herself into her chest, more strongly than Cameron believed she was capable of. She smoothed her soft hair as she picked her up, bouncing and swaying her gently in her arms the way she used to do when she was baby and had woken fitfully in the night from some bad dream. After a few minutes, it put Sarah sound asleep and Cameron walked her around tirelessly for almost an hour, the time slipping by in comfortable silence and she didn't spare a single thought on anything except for her.

When they got home, she would ensure Sarah had new necessities and presents. Maybe they would go away for a while. Whatever Sarah wanted she could have - ice cream, giant cookies, new toys, less school, better clothing. A part of her recognised that she was feeling over-indulgent as a reaction to the fear of loosing her. Another part wished that none of this had ever happened and that the three of them were together again and all of this had just been a nightmare.

She pulled Sarah closer as she felt her little arms tighten behind her neck. She would have to put her down soon and maybe light some candles. She had seen a box of them in the kitchen and some folded linen on top of the cupboards that would serve adequately as a quilt.

She changed direction towards the kitchenette, satisfied that Sarah was in deep enough sleep so that she wouldn't disturb her as she made up a bed on the couch. Sunrise would be in seven-and-a-half hours and she wanted her fully rested by then.

After putting Sarah down and tucking her in, she went about securing the shack. There was no food in any of the cupboards, but she had snatched some candy bars from the cabin before she left. The only useful things she found were a stainless metal teapot and a box of matches – things less useful were hunting and wildlife magazines, an ancient pack of yellowed playing cards and most interestingly – a metal lockbox with the word 'DANGER' stencilled across its surface. She pressed her thumb against the steel keyhole and crumpled the cylinder lock.

Inside was a small card that looked like it had once been glued to the lid. On it was a table of bear species, listing the dosages of tranquiliser for each, depending on the approximate size of the animal. She lifted it up and underneath there were four florescent-tailed blow darts fixed firmly into polystyrene holsters, their needle-tips buried in corks. Across them were bright labels: 'USE EXTREME CARE' and 'OFFICIAL RANGER USE ONLY'.

The inference of their existence clicked instantly in Cameron's head and she put the box down and looked around for the most likely place to hide a weapon.

When she found it, she pulled out a chair and used it to mount the table, reaching up to her maximum extent to the beam of the exposed roof truss and pulled down a dust-covered air rifle. She stepped down and she released the bolt, blowing down the barrel and sending a puff of particulate out the end before re-cocking it and pulled the trigger. Air spat out with strength. Next to her assault rifle and grenade launcher combo, an air rifle seemed rather meek and useless, but she added it to her arsenal nonetheless.

She then turned her attention to the wood burner. Now she had matches she could start a fire. There was no firewood inside it or stored in the shack so she'd have to go out and collect some. It would be alright to leave Sarah for a few minutes, especially if it meant providing the warmth and comfort of a fire. She strode over to her makeshift armoury beneath the windowsill, sliding her hand around the assault rifle as she glanced through the glass.

The face of the Cerberus filled the window.

Cameron was skewered by giant, jet-black eyes that lanced into her with fury and bloodlust. Very slowly, she tried to lift the assault rifle.

A growl shook the glass panes of the window and the Cerberus bared its enormous teeth.

"_Charlie…?_"

Cameron whirled at the sound of Sarah's voice, seeing her daughter rub her eyes as she arose from beneath her quilt. The growling suddenly stopped, but by the time Cameron turned around, the Cerberus was gone.

She checked the rifle's magazine and re-cocked it. "Stay where you are, Sarah." She could still hear it outside, snapping twigs and underbrush, growling so loudly now that it sounded like prehistoric thunder and made the walls quake. The creature was circling the shack and there was no way out.

"You're not going to hurt him, are you?"

Cameron was trying to catch a glimpse of the creature through the window before she frowned and looked at her.

"Why shouldn't I hurt it?"

Sarah's face fell with horror, looking like she might cry.

"No!" She cried and bolted from the couch, pawing at her mother's legs until Cameron knelt down and they were eye-to-eye. "Please don't! It's not his fault! He doesn't have a choice! He was only trying to protect me!"

Cameron wasn't sure if this was some form of Stockholm syndrome or a post-traumatic reaction. Human psychological trauma was difficult to understand, but it didn't sound as though Sarah was suffering from either. In fact, what seemed to be causing her trembling hands and elevated heart rate was the fear of what _she_ might do to this… _'Charlie'_. A human parent might panic or at least take exception to that.

Cameron wasn't human. And she had some experience in what it was like to be mislabelled a monster.

"If the creature is controlled by our enemies, then it is endangering us, despite any benign intentions it might have."

Sarah quickly shook her head. "Just take out his chip. He won't be dangerous if we take out his chip. He can heal very quickly, but it's the chip that makes him dangerous."

Cameron considered it. "There's no way to get close to the creature for the amount of time necessary to perform the extraction."

Both of them went silent for long moments, mother and daughter trying to urge the other with their eyes and neither ready to concede their position.

Then both of them turned to the tranquiliser darts on the kitchen table.

"I have an idea." They said together.

####

Sheriff Bacchus turned his bright-yellow Challenger into his driveway and killed the growl of the engine. _Home sweet home. _He'd had a good day today. In fact, it almost felt _too_ good.

Crime was down across the board. Best of all, the major's office and the press were off his back about the bear killings, which themselves seemed to have fizzled out. No doubt whatever man-eater had been in the vicinity had moved on. Aside from that issue, he couldn't remember the last time he'd dealt with anything _really_ serious. His two biggest cases right now that demanded the lion's share of his time were a stolen buggy from the golfing range and some school kids going truant. The most challenging thing he'd done all day was send a pair of rowdy out-of-towners packing.

He reached to the passenger seat and undid the seatbelt from around a case of beer, lifting it easily with the strength of one hand and picked the piping hot pizza box out of the footwell. Pepperoni with triple cheese. Normally he'd spend the next few hours in the personal gym of his spare bedroom, but he'd honestly never felt fitter, and a quick set of two-hundred push-ups in his office earlier today confirmed he had a recovery heart rate shorter than when he was a teenager. It was on these days of circadian harmony that he treated himself.

Balancing his beer and pizza in one hand he shut the car door with his hip and dug his house keys from his pocket, stepping up the pale-yellow footpath and breathing the crisp night air before sliding them into the front door.

He froze in place like a statue and began to dither.

The beer case fell first, glass smashing within the cardboard carrier, their precious cargo pouring across the doorstep. The pizza box went more slowly, the sweating heat making it stick to his hand before Bacchus's eyes rolled backwards and he keeled over, landing headfirst against the opening door.

Derek grabbed hold of him and took his weight with both arms as John flicked off the wall socket and snatched the copper wire from the inside of the cylinder lock.

"Grab his legs!" Derek said desperately, overwhelmed by the man's sheer mass and colossal deadweight as he tried to keep from falling.

Between the two of them they managed to move him inside and to the living room where the chair they'd prepared sat waiting. They used a steel cable as binding from a winch they'd found in the garage. The grenade they placed in his lap came from the mercenaries on the road. Attached to its pin, Derek hand tied a length of thin metal wire that pulled taunt down between the sheriff's legs, under the chair seat, and was fixed to the leather strap of his belt. If he tried to stand or get out of the chair, the pin would be pulled out, and a lifetime of dedication and bodybuilding exercise would be for nothing.

John wished, and not for the first time, that Cameron was here with him. She could confirm what they needed to know just by touching him and scanning beneath the surface to detect whether it was bone or endoskeleton that lay underneath. _Their_ most direct method would be less subtle – they'd have to remove flesh to either bone or metal to make the same determination.

"How could we be wrong?" Derek argued. "What else could they be except terminators? You saw Bacchus die yourself!"

"Actually, I didn't. He was still alive when I last saw him."

"Well the Kamarovs weren't alive when _I_ last saw them and they're both up and around."

"That's not the point!" John snapped. "I'm only surmising that they're all terminators. They might be something else. Something we haven't seen yet. Replacing an entire town is impractical for Skynet. If who's behind this is who I think it is, then it makes even less sense."

Derek growled as he finished setting the grenade's trigger. "Eventually John, you'll have to enlighten us mere mortals on who exactly you think that is."

After they had finished they stood back and watched Bacchus gradually regain consciousness. At first it seemed like the slow awakening characteristic of a human being, then he suddenly jerk awake and pulled hard at his restraints. He stared around with huge open eyes, then down at his bindings, seeming to calm as he righted himself and looked at them in confusion.

"_Wha_… what the _hell_ is this?"

John had tapped the button on his watch's stopwatch when Bacchus had jerked awake. He showed the results to Derek.

"One-hundred-twenty-four seconds. Pretty close."

Bacchus thought the look Derek turned on him looked like the one an executioner gave his clients. John's look was more judicial.

"You've got some pretty serious problems, sheriff." It was John who did the talking. "Your town's been taken over by a man who has an army of mercenaries at his command, the 'man-eater' in the woods is anything but a bear, and… you may not be feeling all yourself." He pulled over another chair and sat down in front of him. He nodded towards his crotch where the spherical explosive lay nestled. "That grenade is the least of your troubles, but if you stand up or struggle too hard: it's gonna ruin your day."

Bacchus looked to where Derek stood by the door, glaring at him with narrow eyes, like he wanted nothing more than to draw his gun and empty a magazine into him just to prove a point.

Bacchus bit back his defiant instincts but spoke with authority. "You're both under arrest for illegal entry, assault and unlawful imprisonment."

Derek showed his teeth in a chuckle. "Well gee-whiz sheriff, we'd hate to be on the wrong side of the law."

John leaned forward and spoke with earnest. "Don't you remember me?" It was clear that he didn't. "_John Connor_. We've known one another for over five years. I've been a thorn in your side for about the same amount of time. Yesterday you took a _bullet_ to save my life after your entire station had been wiped out." He shook his head. If Bacchus didn't show some hint of recollection then they'd be left with a single recourse. "Do you _honestly_ not remember?"

"My team and my station are both fine," he asserted. "The biggest thing that happened yesterday was finding a body at the construction site."

John ceased on the opportunity. "I know. _I_ was there. You arrested me for contaminating the crime scene."

"No. I arrested a kid named Eli for contaminating the crime scene. I've only known _you_ since lunchtime."

The events were the same, the memories different. More and more the likelihood that this was not the same Sheriff Bacchus began to solidify in John's mind. But how did a terminator replacement have such detailed information about an event that happened only yesterday? No matter how good a terminator's abilities might be – it couldn't have had access to such recent information. It was more like his memories had been _rewritten_.

"We have to be sure about you Bacchus. We have to know what's happened and if you're what my friend thinks you are." John tipped his head back at Derek as his uncle pulled a gun from his jacket. "Are you absolutely certain you don't remember me?"

For a moment, Bacchus seemed to actually consider it. Then he just gave a shrug.

"When we were invading Iraq, I got captured outside Karbala. They held me for two days and tortured me for details of our invasion plan." He had an odd little smile as he looked through John and Derek to the terrible experience he'd long made peace with. "I don't mind telling anyone that I was scared, but eventually the moment comes when you can't feel any more fear. It's not because you're brave: it's because you've reached the limit of what you're capable of feeling. You can't get any more scared. Nothing much frightens you after that." He looked from one to the other. "From the look of both of you, I think you both know what I'm talking about."

Bacchus straightened and set his jaw, looking as steadfast and immutable as Glacier Peak.

"I don't know you. _Either_ of you." His words brimmed with finality. "Do whatever you have to and be on your way."

There wasn't anything left to discuss, and John's verdict finally aligned with Derek's.

"Pull his chip."

John stood and went behind him, wrapping his arm around Bacchus's neck, careful to avoid any biting action he might take as Derek drew a knife from his boot. He'd done this a couple of times, the way his brother had shown him. He knew the exact place and what pressure to use to slice across the flesh covering the skull and expose the CPU port. John gripped Bacchus tight, but the man never moved or made a sound as Derek cruelly cut into his flesh – exposing the glistening chrome metal beneath.

"You see."

Derek used the tip of the knife to remove the port cover and using his thumb and the knife blade as a pincer, he seized the base tab of the chip and pulled. The chip slid out with no effort and John felt the body tension drain out of Bacchus. He let go, circling around in front of him as Derek held the chip up to the light with grim fascination.

"You were right, Derek." John admitted as he dolefully removed the grenade from Bacchus's lap. "I should've listened to you."

His uncle heard the regret in his voice, but at no time did he consider this a victory. "It doesn't matter. We got what we came for." He pocketed the chip and wiped the blood off his knife with a kitchen cloth. "I don't think that we…"

Bacchus jerked awake and gasped for air like a diver breaking surface. John stumbled back and scrambled away on his backside. Derek dropped the knife and drew his gun.

"JOHN!" Bacchus yelled, feeling a searing pain from the wound on his head as he fought for breath. "John, what's happening to me?"

John stared, mouth agape. Derek tried to steady himself, easing off the trigger he almost squeezed. For a few moments neither of them said anything over the roar of rushing blood in their ears.

John was the first to speak. "Bacchus?"

The sheriff took deep breaths before struggling out a response. "Connor!"

"What the hell's going on?" Derek still had Bacchus in his sights, not sure anymore what it was he was aiming at. "If we just pulled his chip, why's he awake?"

John's mind raced, thinking of I-950 infiltrators or back-up CPUs. Then it all clicked together in his mind in a burst of sudden revelation.

"A _hybrid_…" He whispered. "He's a _hybrid_!" John got to his feet and looked at Bacchus like he was the finest of all oil paintings. "The town hasn't been _replaced_, they've been _converted_!" He reached into Derek's jacket and pulled out the chip. "This isn't a CPU, it's some sort of control implant. When we took it out it most have stopped suppressing his memories. Any memories that involved _me_."

"But why just block memories? Why not command them all to kill us?"

John shook his head. "Cameron told me these types of chips don't work that way. They can't take direct control, they can only influence. Blocking everyone's memories was a way to eliminate any allies I had in town that might shelter us." John smiled despite it all. "Damn-it, he's _good_!"

"Fuckin' _who_ already, John?"

"You need to get out," Bacchus interrupted, sounding like he was short of a lung and his face shone with sweat. "They know you're here…"

John frowned. "How do you know?"

"The mercenaries can track us through our chips… when you took it out, the signal died… they'll know something's wrong and investigate."

Derek was already moving, darting out of the living room and collecting their gear together from the kitchen. John hesitated, not certain what to do about Bacchus. If he released him he was as much a fugitive as they were, but putting his chip back in to try and cover their tracks felt pretty callous.

"Looks like I'm going to end up owing you my life twice over."

Bacchus found the strength for a half-smile. "I knew you were trouble, Connor." His voice was not entirely devoid of mirth.

The house was plunged into darkness before John could respond.

The front door handle was blown off and a second later three black-clad mercenaries burst inside, armed and armoured to the nines.

Derek stuck his head out from the kitchen and shone his flashlight in the first one's face. The merc growled as the light blinded him beneath his night vision goggles and Derek shot him in the throat.

The hallway lit up with the strobe flashes of gunfire as Derek slammed a door that was promptly blown to smithereens.

The door from the living room opened and John shot the third mercenary through the side of the head.

The second turned and went to swing his rifle around. John dived straight into him, tackling him to the floor where a brutal struggle began.

Derek went to help but froze when three more mercenaries came rushing up Bacchus's driveway, two packing MP5s and the other one had an enormous carbine shotgun.

"GO!" John yelled as he and the mercenary grappled.

Derek froze-up. The mercenaries would be on them in seconds.

John punched the merc in the ribs and yelled at Derek, "They want me alive! They'll kill _you_ on sight! Now fucking run!"

Derek made no mistake that John was giving him an order, and the soldier in him blindly obeyed. He seized his bag from the table, kicked the back door open and ran for his life into the blanket of night.

Inside, a mercenary grabbed John and pulled him off his comrade. John drove the back of his head into his nose and he was instantly released.

The other mercs tackled him around the waist together and they went down in a tangled mess of limbs as they beat him down to the floor, delivering a dozen brutal blows into John's chest and stomach until his struggling relented and they hauled him to his knees, a man on either arm ready to pop his shoulder sockets the moment he began resisting.

They held him there for nearly a minute before Lance came strolling in. "We got him," he spoke into his ear piece as the lighting was restored, "Bringing him in now."

He stepped closer until John had to look up to meet his gaze. Lance's smile was a white crescent.

"Missed you at the pig-house," he grinned and gestured around them, "Caught you in the sty."

The last thing John remembered was Lance's fist heading towards his face.

####

Moonlight pierced the forest darkness as the Cerberus came awake, its body wracked with the numb vestiges of anaesthesia and grogginess from the stomach-churning tranquiliser.

The woman that smelt of metal had surprised it. She had appeared out of the doorway and the windows of the shack when it tried to get close and fired florescent darts into its back and neck, places where it couldn't reach to remove them. After the third one punctured its carotid artery, it had sunk into blackness.

It couldn't smell Sarah anymore and sorrow filled its soul. The metal woman must have taken her and by now they were long gone.

It tried to heave itself onto its feet, swaying violently and knocking over a tree as it stumbled and fell back down.

"Raptor's-Nest, this is Raptor-One." A gruff voice growled from only a few feet away. "The _thing's_ down. Looks like it's been sedated. What do you want us to do with it?"

The Cerberus turned its head from the soil and saw the group of heavily armed mercenaries converging on it. A helicopter flew overhead, shining a searchlight down through the trees as it circled the area.

The mercenary nodded as he pressed his finger to his earpiece. "Will do. Shouldn't be too difficult. Shut it down and we'll prep it for air-transport."

The Cerberus felt the fight drain out of it. Soon the command would come through the Splinter and it would have no choice but to obey. Somewhere in the distance it heard the heavy rotors of a Chinook approaching.

The mercenary approached, bold and unafraid. He squatted down next to its eyeball. "It's the fuckin' dog-meat factory for you, fido." He stood up, kicked dirt in its face and then drove the point of a steal toecap into its belly. The Cerberus didn't flinch. It barely even felt the blow through the layers muscle that encased its thorax and abdomen like subdermal armour. The greater torment would be the voice of its Creator, the one that it knew now that it could never and would never escape.

"Raptor's-Nest, Raptor-One. We're waiting on that shut-down order. This thing's still conscious."

Yes. It _was_ still conscious. But why? The Creator's voice should have spoken by now, and the Splinter should have turned the world a blur until it was blackness. It lifted a giant paw and felt the side of its head, causing the mercenary to stumble back and raise his weapon. Its claw moved into the slit of flesh that had been opened, probing inwards and feeling that it was _deep_. As it felt it, the wound began to heal up, the last traces of tranquiliser metabolising from its system and returning all of its powers and faculties.

The Cerberus got up and loomed more fourteen-feet above the approaching mercenaries. The one that had driven its toe into its belly stepped backward and tripped over, landed helplessly on his back.

It looked down at him and twitched its head, drinking the man's fear. It slashed once with its paw and beheaded him.

Blood sprayed across tree trunks and the faces of the closest mercenaries and the wave of terror the Cerberus smelt filled its nose and veins like a popper rush. They all suddenly began moving, some breaking into panicked retreat as the braver ones took up firing positions. One fumbled for his radio but kept pressing the wrong button.

"Raptor's-Nest! Raptor's-Nest! We are in deep… _AAHHHH!"_

Screaming and gunfire echoed into the night as the Cerberus rushed forward and began tearing them to pieces.

* * *

_Thought I'd given up, didn't you ;)_

_Please read and review._


	8. Chapter 8

**NOTES**: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.

**SUMMARY**: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".

**DISCLAIMER**: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

* * *

**"Land of the Living"  
Chapter 8  
T.R. Samuels**

For the second time in as many days, John Connor awoke to the smell of bacon.

He blinked against the morning light as it flowed in through the curtains of his bedroom window. He smelt cut grass and pine needles drifting in on the air and the sound of a forest woodpecker. He rubbed his face into the pillow; it smelt like Cameron's beautiful hair. For a few moments, he thought that everything might just have been a dream.

But then he remembered.

The veil lifted and he tensed before bolting upright, bleary eyes sweeping the room. No one was there and everything was as he'd left it. He breathed deep and smelt food again. Maybe it _had_ been a dream? Maybe he could just roll over and go back to sleep, bury his face in Cameron's neck, forget the future and the destiny he'd fought so long to escape from. But it was not to be.

He pulled back the covers and found himself still clad in the bloodstained clothes of the night previous. He winced, the bruising to his chest and abdomen announcing their existence. It _hadn__'__t_ been a dream, and he felt an irrational hatred towards the evidence of that. He touched the side of his head, feeling the pain of more bruising at his temple and a row of butterfly stitches.

_That __was __nice __of __them_, he thought dryly. But John was under no illusions – he was a hostage in his own home.

He went to the bathroom first, locked the door, stripped off his spoilt clothing. The mirror revealed the extent of his injuries as a huge mass of blue, green and purple blotches across his torso, stinging and aching whenever he moved or breathed deep. The bruise to the side of his head looked less severe, and the gash at the base of his eyebrow was held firm by the stitching.

He turned the tap on and began filling the bowl with hot water. He knew what awaited him when he emerged downstairs, but his host could damn well wait until he was ready. Cameron had told him once that it took the human brain more than twenty minutes to fully awaken after sleep, and he'd need all his faculties and wits about him for that inevitable confrontation.

He looked in the wall cabinet, finding a leftover packet of cocodomol from when he had his wisdom teeth removed and downed a pair of pills.

When he was washed and felt human again, he put on a clean white shirt, leaving it loose at the collar before pulling on new pants. He took his time over dressing, thinking about what he would say and deciding on strategy, not the least bit interested in playing Gray's game by rushing downstairs to face him. With some luck, his regular ablutions and leisurely dress would put him out of step.

_What__ does__ he __want__ with __Redwood __and__ the__ people __he__'__s__ converted? __What __was __the __creature __in __the __woods?__ Most __importantly __of __all: __what __does __Kaliba __want __with __my __daughter?_ The last question made him vengeful just thinking about it and he decided there-and-then to keep it under wraps; he wouldn't even mention Sarah's name. _Better __to __let __Gray __do __most __of __the __talking __and __show __his __hand __before __I __do._

When he reached the foot of the stairs ten minutes later he was met by an enormous, cauliflower-eared mercenary standing in the living room. The man looked at him with a thin smile and cocked his head towards the French doors out into the garden. John obeyed wordlessly, noting with some curiosity that the mercenary walked off in the opposite direction towards the front door, leaving John to it.

_Gray __sure __seems __certain __of __himself._ The guard must have only been instructed to point John in the right direction, then return to his duties. Obviously Gray felt confident enough to face him alone. But was that true fearlessness or foolish overconfidence?

Out on the deck, John looked across the expanse of trimmed grass and saw a pale white gazebo, the tiny tassels around the rim of its fabric roof fluttering in the morning breeze. It looked so clean and white that it seemed unnatural. Underneath it was a pinewood table with matching chairs either side, its breadth covered with a tablecloth and set with two place settings. One of the chairs was pulled out waiting for him – in the other sat Kevin Gray.

Gray had two fingers resting on his temple and a thumb under his chin, a pen chicken-scratching in his other hand. His shirt was as loose-collared as John's, but his face was cleanly shaven, one leg crossed over the other to prop up a copy of the day's newspaper. He had the air of a casual millionaire, and it made John slightly perturbed that he seemed so at ease, without a mercenary in sight – not to mention the fact that the two of them apparently shared the same tailor.

"So is it the _infamous_ John Connor, or the _legendary_ John Connor?" Gray's eyes never left his newspaper. He didn't even stop filling in the crossword, at the speed and assuredness that ordinary men played tic-tac-toe.

John preferred neither. "Either works for me," he shrugged.

Gray looked up at last, studying John for several moments before setting the newspaper aside. "_John_," he chose, standing courteously before he gestured to the empty seat. "Would you please join me for breakfast?"

John would have liked to pistol-whip him into oblivion. This was the man who had spoken about his daughter, said her name, had seen and had visited her at school. It felt like a violation and it made John ready to kill.

"Thank you," he said neutrally and moved to his seat. He held his breath to suppress a sigh of pain and eased himself onto the pinewood furniture.

Gray depressed the plunger on the coffee pot, taking care to do it right, then poured the black liquid into John's porcelain cup.

"I'm sorry about Lance," Gray said as he finished pouring. "He's got a talent for getting ahead of himself, but I can't argue with his results."

John considered the veracity of his apology without comment as he lifted his cup. Part of him considered throwing it in Gray's face.

"Do these 'results' include his killing sprees? Or do you only sanction his general skill for mayhem?" He drank the fine liquid, watching Gray over the rim.

The other man rubbed his chin and chose not to mince words: "Eliminating the police force was a necessity," he said as he settled back in his chair and nursed his coffee. "A man such as John Connor – of _all_ people – would understand that we sometimes have to do unconscionable things in order to serve a greater good."

_So __we__'__re __taking__ the__ '__ends-justify-the-means__' __route,__ are __we._ John shrugged. "I guess it depends on _which_ John Connor," he made light.

Gray made a small smile, watching with guarded encouragement as John took a toast slice from the rack and began buttering it.

"So what brings you to Redwood?" John enquired the way one might ask about the weather.

"Business."

"_Really_? What line of business are you in?"

"The same business you're in: the _future_."

Gray gave him a moment to think about that before he raised his arms and clapped twice, like a Sheikh calling a servant. A few seconds later, John discovered just who that servant was.

Across the lawn, Water Delivery Guy was striding towards them. He must have been somewhere in the house, but amazingly, John had never seen him. Between his hands was a big domed serving tray, its handles ornate and expensive, its silver surface a convex mirror. When he arrived he gave John a dispassionate glance before setting the tray on the table. His proximity made John lean back and when he did the terminator reached towards him – and unravelled his napkin – folding the silk cloth into neat a triangle before draping it over his lap.

Gray gave a little chuckle; delighted with the whole scene.

"One of Skynet's most lethal killing machines, and you have him waiting table?"

Gray leaned back as the terminator repeated the process for his master. "Well, he does have more… _traditional_ duties," he remarked before turning the tables. "I wouldn't even want to speculate about what you get _your_ terminator to do."

Preparation complete, the machine placed warm plates in front of them and with a waiter's flurry, raised the domed lid to reveal breakfast. The smell of bacon and blueberry pancake turned John's mouth to water. There was sunny side eggs, still sizzling bacon, a stack of pancakes dripping butter. His stomach groan so hard he had to clear his throat to muffle it.

"Why was it that you were in Redwood again?" he probed. "_Business_ with Kaliba and your shiny new mercs? Hybridisation project go awry?" He thought mention of Kaliba or the hybrids might get a rise out of Gray by revealing just how much he knew.

It didn't.

"Maybe you just needed somewhere spacious to take your Sasquatch for a walk?"

Gray was in the middle of salting his eggs. His hand stayed steady, eyes focussed – and his mouth silent.

_Slippery bastard._

In truth, it was the same response he'd have given himself if their roles had been reversed. Any answer to those questions would have revealed _something_ potentially damaging that he could use.

Gray could have denied everything, indicating that his position here in Redwood was so feeble and untenable that he would decline John any advantage of critical knowledge. Alternatively, he could have owned up to his allegiances, and to the hybrids, but not the monster; suggesting that there was more going on than Kaliba knew about. As it happened, Gray simply let the comment pass.

John had to admit: it took a lot of practice and many hands of poker to develop that kind of stoicism. But what Gray and so many others had evidently failed to realise was that a lack of reaction was as good as a signed confession. Gray and Kaliba _were_ behind everything; why else would he have nothing to say? John then scored an additional victory when he caught Delivery Guy turn his head sharply towards him.

John had yet to meet the terminator that was any good at bluffing.

"Down boy," Gray reproached as the terminator moved towards John, ready to deplete this enemy commander of every last piece of useful information, but with a wave of Gray's hand he was exiled back to the kitchen.

The two shared a few moments in mutual silence, neither keen to be the first to speak. For a while it had felt like they had taken a step too close to something – a dangerous impasse, maybe even crossed a line – and that hidden beneath their outward pleasantries lay a pool of incendiary resentment just waiting for ignition.

John wanted no more sparks today. He'd had some already and his family had got burnt – but then so had Gray; losing mercenaries left and right from the moment he got here. John figured it was at least an even dozen by now, and Derek and Cameron were still out there, the two aces he had up his sleeve.

What was for Gray to know and John to find out: was that that figure was _significantly_ higher.

In a show of diplomacy and offer of peace, John decided to break bread by delving into his pancakes. Gray watched without expression, still perturbed about his machine's show of hand. For a moment he was as on guard and unreadable – then it was all swept away with a smile.

"I have to admit, John," he began to praise. "I didn't expect you to be this cordial."

John ate in outward comfort and spoke with his mouth full. "It's only with robots that you can't be civilised. Humans can be civil all they like – it doesn't mean they can't blow each other's brains out _after_ they've finished eating."

It was meant to be funny, but Gray only nodded slightly and gazed off. "So true," he said quietly, almost sadly. He sounded genuinely depressed about the truth of the words, but John didn't think Gray was thinking about the two of them.

John reached for the maple syrup. His hunger was growing now and eating served a dual purpose – to regain lost strength and to put Gray's guard back to its former passivity.

"Maybe we should put a few cards down to establish trust," he had to be careful this time, but the subject had to be broached: "You work for Kaliba."

Gray didn't speak for very long seconds.

"No," he shook his head and paused again momentarily. "I _am_ Kaliba."

John stopped chewing and Gray saw he had surprised him with the admission.

"I don't _want_ anonymity between us, John," he declared. "I'd much rather find common ground. Kaliba and the Resistance. There's no love lost between Skynet and either of us. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and we could do such great things together."

John nodded in acknowledgment, not accord. "You're probably right. What sort of _'__great__ things__'_ did you have in mind?"

Gray leaned forward and laced his fingers, looking at John intently. "Between us we have the entire technological property of both Skynet and the Resistance. Technology that is vastly more advanced than anything that exists today. There could be an enormous benefit to humanity if we advance society entire decades overnight, not to mention the power and influence that would come with it."

"What kind of power are we talking here?"

"_Real_ power. Not the hollow pretentiousness world leaders hold today. I'm talking about the power to change whatever we want, to _do_ whatever we want; anything and everything that is necessary to prevent machines from ever being our masters – and _more_. There are no limits to what he could accomplish."

"More than decades if you think about it," John corrected his earlier statement. "Arguably, it would have taken humanity on its own nearer a century to reach Skynet's level of advancement."

Gray's brows rose, looking encouraged, and he nodded once in agreement.

John frowned though, using the crust of his toast as a gesturing implement. "_Somehow_ though… I don't think that a quick buck and human continuity is what's foremost on your mind. Not if what's been going on in Redwood is any indication."

Gray smiled and said: "You're right of course," picking at invisible lint on his sleeve. He was suddenly coy, yet enthusiastic all the same by John's apparent willingness to listen to him. "But I don't think this is the moment for a big reveal. You might just be lying to me."

John showed Gray what a real poker face looked like as he continued eating toast.

"Let me tell you what I've already surmised," he said at last, putting his crust down and wiped his mouth on his napkin. "I think you're running some kind of experiment. You've obviously got your technology and conversion process down cold if you've managed to Hybridise so many people. Redwood must be serving as a type of 'proving ground' or 'test bed' for a long-term project." He sipped some coffee. "I think that this is a precursor to something you've already got planned. Something big. Maybe four or five years from now." He drank again to let Gray think.

"You might call it a… '_social_ experiment'," he admitted.

John frowned, curious. He wasn't sure what to make of that, but before he could press him further, Delivery Guy came marching across the lawn, interrupting Gray as he was about to fork his first mouthful of pancake into his mouth. The terminator whispered something in his ear, too quite for John to make out, but for the first time he caught an instant in which Gray's cool demeanour truly slipped. For a moment, he looked _very_ worried. Then the look was gone, faster than Delivery Guy's retreat back to the house.

"I'm afraid we'll have to finish this conversation later, John."

John continued eating, feeling all the stronger and more energised for it. "Problem?" he asked casually as Gray went to leave.

"Nothing we can't handle." Gray put his fork down and rose from the table. "Enjoy your breakfast. When you're finished, I'm taking you to the Yard. Don't make any attempt to escape; I have more men than you realise."

_At__ least __a __hundred__ plus,__ if __I__'__m__ not__ mistaken,_ John made an all too satisfied smile and lifted his cup. "Well just let me know if you need a hand," he wondered who was giving the mercenaries the most grief: Derek or Cameron. "I look forward to talking more about the future," he lied.

Gray gave a peevish sneer before walking away, throwing some parting words over his shoulder: "Enjoy my hospitality while it lasts, John."

"I already have… _Daniel_."

John looked hard over his cup and drank deep.

Behind him across the lawn, Gray's stride faltered and he came abruptly to a stop. His head tilted back towards Connor. John didn't look or turn around, and a second later, Gray began walking again, his gait a notch less confident than before.

_Got you, you bastard._

John smiled and ate his bacon; Cameron's was much better.

####

Something was wrong with the mercs.

In the last hour, Derek had observed a significant increase in their activity: plain-clothed men running through the streets, unseen aircraft overhead, and a jump in chatter over their radios. Where once there had been stealthiness and profuse confidence, there now was a growing tension and a renewed sense of urgency. They were becoming more visible, operating out in the open and making little effort to hide their activities.

_Something__'__s __happened_, he thought. _Something__'__s __gone __wrong__ and __they__'__re__ panicking._

Derek's own tension was heightened at the thought of what could fray the nerves of a company of mechanised troops, but then he reminded himself that these men were nothing but hired guns. Their courage and nerve would only hold out so long as it remained profitable for them to do so. They didn't care about duty or honour, and the best chance to defeat them, Derek knew, was to make things as _un_profitable for them as possible.

For the hundredth time, Derek parted the metal blind of the window and looked up and down the street, feeling like a curtain-twitching old lady. Any movement caught his attention from his vantage point of the second floor storage room above the Brewed Awakening.

How he'd made it back here in the dead of night had been a chance concoction of skill, poise and barefaced audacity. Years as a sewer rat in the ruins of the future, hunted by HKs and terminators day and night, had forged him the cat-like furtiveness of an urban ninja – and Derek's Kung Fu was still strong.

Movement caught his eye and he parted the blinds wider, watching as a black Humvee roared down the street like a bat-out-of-hell. The driver was either mad or drunk, doing near a hundred-and-ten down the picturesque boulevard before skidding into a one-eighty halt that nearly tipped the vehicle over outside the entrance to the town hall. Black-clad mercenaries piled out from either side, rushing into the building like their lives depended on it. After a few minutes they came out, carrying heavy strongboxes of equipment between them and loaded them through the vehicle's tailgate. When they were finished they got back inside and roared off again in a cloud of white tyre smoke.

_They__'__re __collecting __gear_, he figured. _What __kind __of __gear?__ And __why __the __rush?_

He still had one of the radios they'd taken from the sentries on the backroad into town, but the mercs had long since changed channels. It had taken quite a bit of retuning, but finally Derek had found their new frequency and was able to listen in. Two mercenaries were talking:

"_Something's happened to Raptor-One."_

"_What? What happened?"_

"_Dunno. But it was enough to make Jefferson order a fallback to the Yard."_

A third voice broke in between them. _"__For __fuck-sake!__ I__ said __to __stay __off __your __god-damn__ radios!__" _it cracked like a whip, sharp and scathing._ "__Attention __all __Raptor __units: __switch __to __channel __three!__" _The radio went dead as Derek fastened up the zip on his new combat vest.

About an hour ago he had singled out a lone mercenary when he'd gone for a smoke in an alleyway. The man had been about Derek's height and weight and when he went to take a leak behind a dumpster, Derek pounced. The merc saw him coming in the last few seconds, but it didn't help – Derek put him down in one hit and broke his neck with his boot heel.

It was remarkable how unwilling a man was to take up a proper defensive stance when his manhood was dangling from his pants.

Derek stripped him of his outer layers and slung the body in the dumpster before breaking into the storage room to change. The vest was a little tight over his chest and the pants were stained with urine, but it would have to do. In full combat fatigues – gloves, vest, goggles and helmet – Derek looked all but indistinguishable from any other mercenary. He'd need to be for what he planned next.

He waited by the window for a few more minutes, glancing from his watch to the street below as it was gradually illuminated by the dawn sun. Another Humvee would be heading by in about a minute – if he'd read their patrol routes right.

_What the hell are you doing, Derek?_

Of all the crazy plans he'd cooked up in his time, this was by far the most bat-shit.

Headlights lit his eyes and a moment later the black silhouette of a mercenary vehicle rolled into view on its patrol route. Derek was downstairs and out into the alleyway in seconds, adopting a mercenary swagger once he tasted fresh air and marched out into the road – bold and unafraid as he cast the dies of fate.

The Humvee growled to a halt when they saw him flagging them down.

Suddenly, the enormity of the risk he was taking fell upon Derek's survival instincts and he felt the impulse to bolt, but he stood firm. _Man __up, __Reese.__You __were __born __for __this._ It was the best chance he had of finding out where they had taken John and get close enough to rescue him – that thought alone was sufficient enough to shore up his backbone and make a brinkman out of the habitually prudent Derek.

His brother would have been so proud of him.

A mercenary got out of the front passenger seat, hands gripping an MP5, looking at Derek with distinct uncertainty. The weapon was familiar to Derek and one of his favourites: accurate, reliable and reassuringly German. He looked past his challenger to the Humvee, seeing two other mercenaries: a driver that was all eyes and a gunner who wielded the roof-mounted machinegun like it was an extension of his soul.

"Halt and be identified!" the first merc called over the doorframe, using the hinged slab of metal as a makeshift shield. He didn't raise his gun though, Derek noted. His change in wardrobe had worked so far and put him halfway through the door. Now it was up to his skill in bullshit to do the rest.

He answered succinctly and made no sudden moves: "Neumann. ID: Charlie-six-one-six."

The merc behind the door made no reaction, but the driver began tapping away on a dash-mounted computer tablet. An agonising wait ensued, the first merc staring him down as the gunner thumbed the safety on his .50 cal.

The computer bleeped, Derek swallowed, and then the driver gave his colleagues the thumbs-up and all suspicion drained out of them like water.

"Holy shit! We had you down as M-I-A," the first merc exclaimed.

Derek shrugged as he approached, one of the boys again. "I was in the recon element ahead of you," he told truthfully. "We got hit hard. Lost my crew. I ended up hell-and-gone before I heard the helicopters fly in and knew it was safe," he lied through his teeth.

The mercenary emerged from behind the door, raising a clenched hand and they bro-fisted. By now the act was so autonomous amongst them that it felt devoid of all meaning, but Derek took comfort in the fact that it reaffirmed his feigned allegiance more than words ever could.

He was thankful now that John had killed those mercs at the backroad checkpoint, otherwise this subterfuge probably wouldn't have worked and he'd be a red stain on the asphalt.

"We're finishing this patrol and then heading back to the Yard," the driver said, flicking his thumb in the direction of the backseats.

Without another word, Derek got in and slid next to the gunner. The driver restarted the engine, put it in gear and roared the Humvee down Main Street into the ascending aura of the morning sun.

####

On a twisting road to the south of Redwood, a lone mercenary tapped his bloodied fingers on his jeep's steering wheel, humming along to the happy, uplifting melody of _Flowers__ on __the__ Wall_. It was the only tune and the only radio station he could find, but it was doing wonders for his shattered nerves. As far as he was concerned: it was the greatest piece of music mankind had ever created.

Seeing your entire platoon wiped out by a werewolf could do that to a battle hardened mercenary and lifelong Iron Maiden fan.

Carver kept his eyes wide and on the road – white opals set in a blood-soaked face. He could still feel the muscles in his arms were strained taunt, could still feel the drumbeat of his jugular. And he could still hear the yells and the screaming as the thing-from-hell had cut off heads and arms and legs, wrenched guts out by the bucket full and torn his team to pieces. The soul chilling bellow of its roar cut through him even now like a shard of frozen glass.

In the confusion and blind panic, there had been cowardice and courage aplenty – and the same fate for both. Men who stood their ground were cut down just as easily as those who had run. Even the helicopters hadn't escaped, brought down by jagged granite boulders or armoured vehicles the thing had accordioned like they were tin foil and hurled them into the sky like retroactive meteorites.

Carver had been lucky. Very, _very_ lucky. He'd taken a glancing leg wound from friendly fire and seconds after going down he'd had the top half of a still-breathing comrade flung on top of him. It had hidden him from the creature's notice as it busied itself with the others – sheep fleeing before the wolf. He'd been too terrified to move or utter a sound – even as the searing kiss of the bullet agonised and the intestines of his fallen brother smothered his petrified face.

The song reached its feel-good chorus and suddenly he became aware of his engorged bladder and that he needed to take a leak worse than a champion racehorse.

It was a crazy thing to do; pulling over in hostile territory on the backroad of the back-of-beyond. He wasn't nearly far enough out of the forest yet to justify any kind of pit stop, but his bladder and muddled faculties auto-piloted the jeep to the side of the barrier protected road, whining the battered vehicle to a halt a few yards from the precipice of a granite cliff face.

He began the monumental task of getting out, fumbling with the door latch like a palsy victim. His legs felt like rubber when they met the ground, his wound a seeping burn, arms and fingers barely capable of manipulative strength – he'd done assault courses that were less gruelling. When he found his feet he felt like he was a hundred pounds heavier, staggering like a drunkard to the dangerous precipice. He had to rest his knees against the crash barrier as he undid his fly and when he finally relieved himself into the chilly night air he had to be careful not to evacuate his bowels too.

Somehow he managed, and as the arc of urine descended into the abyss, he actually began feeling better.

The _clack-clack_ of a bolt catch cut him off mid-flow.

He swallowed hard, and turned his head slowly.

Cameron was standing a few yards to his left. An assault rifle lay in her arms, her eyes narrow, expression downcast towards his manhood and clearly unimpressed.

Carver looked her up and down, surprised by how small she was. Her weapon looked bigger than her.

He looked ahead, grinning slightly as he zipped up, his confidence growing with thoughts of how and when he could rush her and go for the gun, but when he looked back her eyes met his, and their glare and intensity bitch-slapped the fight right out of him. For an instant, it felt like he was facing that _thing_ again.

Cameron cocked her head, sensing Carver's defeat the way all predators smelt blood.

"We like your jeep…" she said, mouth curling wryly.

He frowned at the choice of pronoun. Then motion caught his eye and he watched with surreal wonder as little Sarah trotted merrily across the road from her secluded hiding place, not a care or worry in the world as she slid up next to her mother, arms circling her leg – the fearless cub beside the lioness.

Cameron's eyes never left him – white orbs of lethality and derisiveness – even when the little girl peered up at him and gave a friendly little wave.

Carver swallowed a residue of saliva down his parched throat.

"We need to keep moving," Sarah pawed at her mother's leg, wary of the time they had lingered.

Cameron looked to her little daughter; a three-foot package of sage council and adorableness, whose wisdom and intuition she now held above all. She looked to the tree line and into the darkness of the silent forest. "Is it still coming after us?" she asked.

Sarah nodded.

####

Derek had expected many things of the mercenaries' base – an encampment of some kind obviously, in a clearing outside the town, a main building perhaps, rows of tents, some radio equipment, a satellite dish or two, flat and open ground to land helicopters and for servicing their fleet of vehicles. Nothing could have prepared him for the truth:

The mercenary base was _enormous_.

After driving for nearly thirty minutes, the merc's Humvee had emerged from the forgotten warren of Redwood's ubiquitous, ancient back roads and arrived at their main base of operations: the old marshalling train yards that had once been the epicentre of the town's industry and the lifeline of employment for the once booming settlement – what the mercs colloquially referred to as 'the Yard'.

The site was spread over at least a dozen acres and was only marginally overgrown, the wilderness kept at bay by the calibre of its construction and the miles of industrial steel, hectares of concrete and industrial-strength asphalt, so fouled and downtrodden from decades of abuse that only stinging nettles were now able to flourish, clumped together everywhere like rosebushes.

There were ten rail tracks in all, divided into two groups of five that ran parallel with one another. Between them was a raised concrete platform big enough to manoeuvre trucks, coal hoppers and giant machinery, flanked at either end by giant cranes that looked like dinosaur skeletons. Locomotives would decouple their empty carriages on one track and then move to a waiting rake of fully laden wagons on another, hauling them off after refuelling to somewhere hundreds, even thousands of miles away in the world beyond. The main buildings were ugly behemoths; steel frame and masonry, asbestos roofs and broken windows, built for function over form and little else.

The Humvee slowed at an outer checkpoint manned by machinegun totting mercs and a sandbag pillbox. A glance out of the window revealed that the underbrush beyond the road was littered with caltrops and curls of hidden razor wire, the occasional claymore placed in here and there for good measure.

He set his jaw as the Humvee was waved past without even stopping and the full magnitude of the mercenaries' presence washed over him like a tidal wave.

The Yard was a hub of military hardware and activity, with temporary buildings in neat, even rows. Derek made out a main structure that served as a command centre with adjoining facilities, a radio mast and satellite dishes clumped together in an antenna farm, a fuel dump that had been converted from an old engine repair depot, vehicle maintenance garages converted from others. As they got deeper into the camp, Derek saw that there was even an exercise yard, with weights and dangling punch bags. Next door was a compound of barracks, dotted with off-duty mercs either chilling or exercising or crowding around a smoking barbecue, waiting for burgers as they swigged beer. Between everything where enormous blocks laid end-to-end, compartmentalising each area from the next – four-foot picket fences of reinforced concrete designed to stop ram-raiding assaults in their tracks.

"Ho-ly _shit_…" Derek breathed.

The driver glanced at him. "Somethin', ain't it?" he had a big grin on his face. "Like being back in the Corp!"

"Talk about overkill," his eyes moved over everything. "How many men do we have now?" Derek may have been stunned, but he'd learnt from both old and new-John alike to never miss an opportunity to gain intelligence.

"Should be near one-eighty by now," the gunner sitting next to him supplied. "Minus the thirty or so that went out last night to bring in the Cerberus."

Derek glanced sideways, the burning question dying in his throat as he quickly figured out for himself what the Cerberus probably was. He did some quick arithmetic:

_Nearly two-hundred mercs, enough hardware for a battalion, armoured vehicles, air support, and the thing out there in the woods._

He set his teeth together and sank his eyelids.

_We're fucked._

The Humvee finally rolled up outside a makeshift garage and Derek and the mercs got out. A mechanic team took charge of their vehicle almost immediately and the next thing Derek knew, a pair of MPs were upon them, or at least what passed for MPs in the mercenary hierarchy: lantern-jawed gorillas chosen solely on their ability to intimidate and deal out knuckle justice. Derek was forced to disarm like the others: no weapons allowed on the base unless you were on duty. They'd all be stowed in the armoury until they were redeployed.

"The hell is this?" one of them pulled Kaufman's Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum from Derek's shoulder holster. "This ain't exactly our regular issue."

The merc waved the gun in Derek's face, seizing the chance to exert his authority over this minor infraction.

"It's mine," said Derek. "Has a lot of sentimental value."

The merc looked it over, admiring the workmanship, its long barrel and the custom-made handle. "You're not walking around with _this,_ Callahan."

_You're not having it either, bub._

Derek's hand blurred like a rattlesnake, snatching the weapon back before the ape knew what was happening. He cracked its open, averting the provost's knee-jerk reaction when he began ejecting the .44 cartridges into his palm.

"This is _my_ gun," he asserted, and slapped the cartridges into the guy's hand and holstered the treasured weapon where it belonged.

The merc wanted to say something, bring Derek to heel, but he was so flummoxed by the gun's beauty, the speed of Derek's hand and his barefaced effrontery. He saw red though when Derek turned his back and without thinking it through – dropped a firm hand on Derek's shoulder.

Derek's hand struck again, faster this time, turning to face the ape as he did so and twisted his wrist until he had the man on his knees, squealing like a pig. He looked to his comrade and the other mercs for help, but all of them just laughed.

"Just give him the damn thing, Conrad."

Conrad defied a bit longer, looking up at Derek's effortless smile. He nodded hard in acquiescence and Derek let him fall into a foetal heap.

"Think you got off light…" "Man's piece is his piece…" "You got TOLD, bitch…"

Derek heard them laughing it off as he walked away, putting as much distance between them as possible as he zipped his jacket tight, concealing the gun to prevent any further confrontations. He just hoped the degradation he just bestowed on young Conrad was enough to blind him to the fact that he had only handed him _five_ cartridges.

_Enough __playing,_ he reprimanded himself. _Time __to __get __down __to __business._

He had to get the lay of this place. He needed to figure out his next move. Find where they were holding John. That antenna farm looked like a prime target and would make a nice distraction when the time came. He needed to get hold of some explosives though, plant them near the dishes and the mast without being seen. _No __problem,_ he thought. It'd cause havoc inside the base, give him room to manoeuvre and put a big fat dent in their communications as well.

A deaf and dumb enemy, dazed and confused, would be much easier to handle – especially if he'd have to shoot his way out of here with John over his shoulder.

_Where__ the __hell _was _John__ anyway?_

Derek tried the barracks first, mingling with the crowd in the exercise yard as they played basketball, hung out or dealt cards. The man at the giant barbecue wore an apron with blow-up breasts and flipped burgers like he had missed his calling. Derek got a hotdog and a beer, filling the bun with ketchup and yellow mustard. There were no condiments in the future, and not once since Derek had discovered them had they ever lost their exoticism.

Most of the other areas of the encampment were too heavily guarded and patrolled to conduct a casual search. Derek would stick out like the balls on a bulldog if he wasn't supposed to be there, and capture meant certain death. Beyond the encampment though were a row of broken down buildings, garage bays and machine shops designed to do heavy repairs to damaged train carriages. If he could get to the rooftop and find a good crow's nest, he might be able to catch a glimpse of John, or the mercenary leader – at the very least get the lay of the land.

Slipping away proved easy enough, but Derek had to take down another merc: a lone man who'd slipped away for a joint of Marijuana.

"Drugs can kill you, y'know," he hissed through his teeth as he held the merc's head down in the dirt, his knee hard in his spin until the man stopped struggling and went limp. He dragged the body inside an old washroom, its walls crooked with broken tiles, corroded pipes and there was a wild rhododendron growing in the toilet. Derek searched him for a weapon but didn't find one, settling instead for some lesser ancillary items found commonly upon soldiers, amongst which was a stubby monocular.

_Sweet_, he grinned.

The building's rooftop was a flat mat of cracked tar laid down about fifty years ago, not particularly intended to be walked on. Derek crouched and moved as fast as possible to the parapet, hearing on the horizon the distant, monotonous thrum of helicopter rotors. A chopper was approaching. He'd need to be set up and in position before it arrived. He'd dragged along a musty tarpaulin he had found made of burlap fabric, stinking of rat faeces and covered in cobweb – perfect for an impromptu urban ghillie suit.

Derek reached the parapet edge, wrapped himself in the tarpaulin like it was a cloak and sat cross-legged next to an ancient industrial cable reel. The only part of him that remained uncovered were his eyes, one of which was occupied with the little eyepiece.

He swept his gaze across the base, spotting tents and active patrols he hadn't noticed from his previous vantage points, adding them to his mental map of the compound. He saw that they were more mobile than he expected and many men on duty were assigned to tasks that involved collecting gear, collapsing non-essential structures and general packing.

_Holy__-shit!__ They__'__re __packing __up __entirely_, he realised. _They__'__re __packing __up __and __getting __ready __to __bug__ out of he__re._

The thought nearly made him light-headed, but he knew John would be taken with them when they left. God knows to where. Somewhere he doubted he could follow, and then John would be lost forever. The sound of helicopter blades drew nearer, close enough to discern the characteristic twin-rotor staccato of a Chinook. He noted as well the curious nature of the mercenary withdrawal: it was more orderly than he expected and with little to no concern amongst the men, at least if their little cookout was anything to go on. The sanctuary of high walls and gun emplacements could sooth many soldiers' hearts.

_How __the __hell __are __they __going __to __move __all __this __stuff?_ He wondered. There was far too much gear to take out on choppers. _Come __to __think __about __it; __how__ did __they __get__ it __all __here __in __the __first __place?_

Derek didn't have to wait long for an answer.

As the Chinook appeared low over the tree tops and came in for landing, Derek's attention was yanked away in a different direction towards the rail tracks that fed out of the Yards into the forest and what he saw took his breath away.

The locomotive at the head of the train was a massive, ugly beast, running on a 4-axle wheel base and looked like it had the aerodynamics of a brick. Right behind it was another one just like it, and behind that one a third. Each was painted jet black and had a hulking engine compartment in its main body, reminding Derek of the creature that lived in the woods – but these at least ran on diesel, not the flesh and blood of the living.

Brakes were applied and an ear-splitting whine of metal upon metal brought the attention of the entire base towards the slowing behemoth as it rolled its enormous length into the heart of the mercenary's operations, seemingly never-ending.

At the front was a pair of luxury passenger carriages, then freight wagons and troop sleepers, fuel tanks and flatbed well cars carrying double-stacked shipping containers made up the rest, but just as Derek thought he would catch glimpse of the caboose, even _more_ of it rumbled into view – a great rolling highway for vehicle transport. Interspersed at regular intervals were purely military cars: machine gun nests and anti-air, even a few missile batteries.

_Woe __betide __the__ poor __bastards__ who __get __on __the __wrong __end __of _that _fucking __thing_, Derek despaired, the light-headed buoyancy he'd felt earlier now totally evaporated.

His attention drew back to the now landed Chinook and he brought his monocular back up to his eye as its passengers filed out. Mostly mercs came first, a tall one in particular with cauliflower-ears caught his attention, all armed to the teeth with the best weaponry and gear Derek had seen yet. The next one was much more interesting: white male with neat hair, wearing a pinstriped suit with a blood red tie, looking like he was born with a silver spoon up his ass and a chip on his shoulder the size of Nebraska. He pointed about and ordered around mercenaries twice his size who all instantly obeyed.

'_Jefferson__'__, __I __presume_, Derek marked him for death.

He shuffled forward then as a second man was hauled out, manhandled either side by a pair of mercs. He recognised him immediately.

_JOHN!_

His adult nephew didn't look too worse for wear, standing tall amidst the gun totting mercs and cooperating only when necessary in a form of passive resistance. Derek couldn't believe such a stroke of luck – John and the mercenary leader in the same place. He'd take out Jefferson and then spring John. That way, if he failed by raising too much alarm in the killing then at least he'd have rid them of the head of the snake and given John a fighting chance.

He watched them a few minutes longer before it became apparent that their immediate destination was the passenger carriages near the front of the train.

Derek ditched his camouflage and went back the way he came, retracing his steps down to ground level and out of the rear of the building. He had to slip back amongst the mercs without raising suspicion, a job made mercifully easier by the distraction of the train's arrival. Without much effort he avoided a vehicle patrol and strode nonchalant across the vacated exercise yard and casually reintegrated himself back into the natural to-and-fro activity of the camp.

_Got__ta __get __close __to __John,_ he reasoned. Jefferson was keeping him close to hand and that just made things easier. What was _not_ easy was the man's personal guard – at least twenty-strong mercenaries – they'd be a serious problem in a heartbeat.

Being as unobvious as possible, he observed as a team of starch-white stewards spilled out of the second passenger carriage and Derek realised at once that it was a servant car, with a kitchen and serving facilities intended to cater to the occupants of the first – Jefferson's executive carriage.

The stewards entered the base and Derek followed from a distance, their white uniforms making it easy to single them out. They were heading to one of the main buildings he had marked during his earlier reconnoitre as the base's main storage area for supplies. A few minutes later they came out one at a time, carrying sealed trays of butchered meat, wine crates and other boxes of unnecessary luxury. Jefferson obviously liked to travel in style.

"Excuse me?" Derek felt a hand land on his shoulder from behind again and he almost reacted without thinking. He tensed up and tried to turn around as innocently as possible to what must undoubtedly be a mercenary that had noticed his movements, fuelled with suspicion and a work ethic.

Instead what he found himself squaring off against was one of the stewards, his white uniform a stark contrast to the rustic surroundings. His hair was waxed into a tall quiff and he held an unknown brand of cigarette between effeminate fingers. He looked as though he'd never thrown a punch in his life.

"I'm terribly sorry, but do you have a light?" he asked timidly.

Derek nearly laughed aloud – this was going to be too easy.

He looked to the tent that was right next to them and reached out for the door flap, holding it open with one hand and gesturing inside with the other.

"Sure thing. It's right in here."

The smile that lit up the steward's face almost made Derek sad as he followed him inside.

Five minutes later, Derek was regretting not having a shave this morning as he tugged at the ill-fitting collar of his new white uniform, feeling like he must look like a hippo in a leotard to even the most blasé observer as he carried a heavy water cooler bottle on his shoulder. No one seemed to notice though and the bottle obscured his face to at least half of everyone he encountered. He'd had to ditch all the gear he'd accumulated in the last few hours, except for Kaufman's .44 and its lone cartridge that nestled snugly in the shoulder holster beneath his jacket. It felt like an iron growth sticking into his side and even the most inept patdown by a complete idiot would reveal it, but at least at a glance it was not that noticeable beneath his bicep.

He steadied himself against his nerves and the sloshing weight of his cargo as he approached the trade entrance door of the second carriage. The mercenary minding the door never battered an eyelid at him as he passed, he even helped steady him when the gravity nearly got the better of him on the tiny steps up.

_Keep __it __together_, he willed himself. _Not __far __now._

Inside the doorway was a storage room filling with supplies. Ahead of him, a steward was dropping off a crate of tonic water as his superior watched from the inner door to the kitchens, ticking off items on a clipboard as they came in and had an expression on his face as though this was beneath him. As he passed by on his way out, Derek waited until he heard footsteps on the metal steps before making his move.

He made a show of swaying that put him within striking distance, and when the man with the clipboard reacted instinctively to help him he summoned his arm's strength, gripping the neck of the giant bottle and brought its fat body down on his head. The man went down like a coal sack.

"We're all right!" Derek threw over his shoulder to forestall the guard and without any further obfuscation, drew the gun from his jacket, pulled the door to the kitchens open and marched in.

He passed the narrow kitchen without even seeing it, striding past stewards too busy to notice his murderous intent or the silver weapon held at his side as Derek bypassed all of them and made for the door to the executive carriage. He heard haughty diatribe being debated beyond and without any hesitation he drew the hammer back with his thumb, shouldered the door open…

…and walked straight into the mountainous chest of Delivery Guy.

Derek raised his gun. Delivery Guy caught his forearm in a pneumatic grasp and clasped his other hand over the Resistance fighter's mouth, muffling Derek's yowl of pain as a flick of the machine's arm shook the gun right out of his hand.

"What is it?" Derek heard someone call from deeper inside the carriage as he was forced onto his knees.

"Problem with the staff, sir." The terminator tossed over his shoulder, cold steel eyes never leaving Derek's.

Derek caught a glimpse of the cabin past one of the machine's legs. John was seated only ten yards away, close enough to call out to – but he was facing the opposite direction – towards the man in the pinstripe suit who he had no intention of backing down to. "Maybe he's here to tell you that your caviar case is too heavy," he quipped, to Jefferson's mild annoyance.

"Take care of it." He waved them away and reengaged an oblivious John in conversation.

A sinister approximation of a smile formed across Delivery Guy's lips. "Understood," he said dutifully, and the last thing Derek remembered was a pain in the side of his neck as the machine's fingers dug deep and his vision shrank into black.

When he awoke, Derek was bound and groggy from unconsciousness. He had no idea how much time had passed, only aware that he was bouncing around in a dark compartment. He tried to move but the area he was in was barely big enough to breathe as he lay curled up and uncomfortable in a foetal position. He could hear the sound of a roaring engine, tyres digging for the road, and realised he was in a trunk space.

_Why the hell didn't the metal kill me?_

When the vehicle finally stopped, all Derek could hear was the sound of his own breathing until daylight flooded into the trunk and a pair of unstoppable arms grabbed hold of him and yanked him out, throwing him to the ground hard. He tried to get his feet, eyes squinting in the sudden brightness.

Delivery Guy grabbed him again, this time by the collar, lifting him off his feet with one arm and began walking with him.

"This is a very beautiful weapon," the machine remarked as Derek's vision cleared. He'd been taken somewhere in the forest, but the trees here seemed sparse and less vibrant, the ground dominated by bare rock and lichen rather than underbrush. He looked down at the machine and saw that in its other hand it was turning Kaufman's Magnum this way and that, admiring every inch. Beyond it though, Derek's eyes went to the machine's two-way radio, clipped to the front of the combat harness it wore around its chest – if he could just grab it and get away – it might be his salvation.

"Smith and Wesson Model 29, eight and three-eighth-inch barrel, .44 Magnum cartridge, custom-made handle, popularised by its appearance in the 1971 motion picture _Dirty__ Harry_," the terminator recited coldly, but with an odd undercurrent of genuine passion that echoed the way a connoisseur recited the credentials of an exquisite vintage. "It will be a welcome addition to my collection."

Derek spat at him. "When I get it back, I'll use it to blow your fucking head off! Add your chip to _my_ collection!"

The terminator cocked its head in soulless curiosity, carrying Derek further from the car until its knees came to a crash-proof barrier and Derek was dangling from its hand over a precipice. The machine made its ugly smile again.

"You gotta ask yourself one question," its voice assumed a perfect imitation of Harry Callahan. "'Do I feel lucky?'"

The machine retracted its arm, bringing Derek until they were nearly nose-to-nose, "Well do ya, punk?"

Derek snatched with his hand and in the next instant he was launched into the air like a shot put, for a few moments weightless and at peace as his hand clutched victoriously with the machine's radio – enough time see his life flash before him and see the terminator raise the gun.

_Only one bullet left and the tree canopy might break my fall._

_I'm feeling lucky._

A gunshot rang out and agony burst through Derek's abdomen. Delivery Guy smiled satisfactorily as the perfectly aimed bullet pierced flesh. Gravity took control, green horizon and blue sky whirled, and then Derek Reese plummeted into oblivion.

* * *

_Over a YEAR since I started this story! That's a bit longer than I intended, but I'll get there in the end._

_Hope you liked this one and that it was worth the wait._


	9. Chapter 9

**NOTES**: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.

**SUMMARY**: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".

**DISCLAIMER**: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

* * *

**"Land of the Living"  
Chapter 9  
T.R. Samuels**

Few people in life ever realised that getting shot is an extremely solipsistic experience.

Derek Reese knew better—he'd done it before.

John, Cameron and Sarah; Redwood and the Cerberus; Kaliba and its hired army of mercenaries. All of them flittered away into obscure concepts, peripheral concerns, half-remembered motes of irrelevance floating about in the dwindling realm of consciousness. The only two things Derek could think about when he opened his eyes was the blinding agony of the bullet wound in his stomach, and the fact that he was hanging from a tree.

"_AHHHH,_" he cried past bloodied teeth as numb hands went to the bullet wound, flinching away when their touch gave a surge of pain. The tiny fragment of metal nestled within felt like the tip of a javelin, its invisible end bobbing up and down to the slightest body motion, stirring his insides with a blade.

He blinked against the sun, but his vision refused to focus everything looked red out of his left eye.

Derek had no idea how long he had been there. He was suspended in midair from the bowing branch of a giant Douglas-fir, about twenty feet from the ground amidst the lower branches of the canopy, the straps of his gun harness bunched up beneath his armpits, making his arms stick out uselessly as if he were trying to fly.

He remembered falling, weightless and at peace, bathed in morning sunlight. It had felt like a dream. Then he'd hit the top of the tree, bashing through the foliage from branch to branch as he headed down, groping frantically and uselessly before his head struck trunk. Somehow, in the seconds after losing consciousness, he had becoming entangled in the large lower branches and one had become snared by his harness.

_Very lucky_, he thought.

He flinched hard against another stab of pain and then flinched harder against the flinch.

_Lucky-ish_, he amended.

He clenched his stomach muscles. _That hurts!_ He tried covering the wound with his hand again. _That hurts too!_ The pain made him flinch. _That hurts more than anything!_ He tried to look around, lift his legs, lift his arms, swallow, cough, sniff, squint, think, breathe. _Everything_ hurt to do _anything_.

He was wracked by a coughing fit and winced hard, crying out in a squawking mewl and flapping his useless arms when the pain became too much to bear. He was sure that in the unlikely event there were a passer-by, they would probably think that he was some hitherto undocumented species of bird. The _Red Speckled Reese_, they'd call it.

He clenched his teeth until the worst pain passed and he tasted blood on his tongue.

_If I live another hour it'll be a miracle._

But why did he need to live longer than that? Why did it feel so urgent that he do so? Surely death would be preferable now. He found it very hard to remember anything over the pain and disorientation that throbbed from an open head wound. He was sure he was supposed to do something important, something _more_ important than his life. _But what?_

He groaned hard again as the pain returned, rolling through him and out of him like a tide. Between minutes of sheer agony, groaning himself hoarse and dribbling profanity, he enjoyed brief seconds when the pain went away—little windows of Nirvana—before he was plunged once more into torment. He used these precious moments to do his thinking, beyond them it hurt too much to think.

What was it he had to remember? Why was it so important?

He felt a sudden anxiousness about the forest as he hung helplessly and bleeding out. Like something might come and get him.

He thought about getting back to town, but something made him fear that as well.

Hopelessness and fear filled him and before to long the pain returned and all thought receded again.

_Please just let me die, _he begged into the void.

Tears welled in his eyes, but not from the pain this time. It was from the crushing sense of despair and injustice at the thought of dying here and even worse: being left to die.

Alone. Forgotten. Finished with. The flotsam and jetsam of life.

_I never saw the Pyramids. I never went to a football game. I didn't go on that long vacation I always wanted._

His heart clenched tighter.

_I never started a family. I never had a home. I never had any children. I really wanted to have children. Wasn't I supposed to have those things?_

_Didn't I _deserve_ those things?_

When it got right down to it, the life of Derek Reese had been a pretty humdrum affair. Most of his earliest memories were of running and hiding, his life before Judgement Day as tangible as a dream. In the future afterward he'd been starved, dirtied, frozen, hunted day and night, traumatised and terrified, used and discarded, lied to and betrayed, left to rot and sent to fight, sent to die and returned to serve.

Hanging here now at the end of his days he saw more clearly than ever the tapestry of his life, laid out before him on the ground below—a frayed rag over jagged rocks—telling all to see about the sad little story of a sad little man that would soon draw into a sad little ending no one would remember.

Derek balled up his eyes and shook his head, throat betraying a sob.

_I don't deserve this. I didn't do anything to deserve this._

_I know I'm hard and bitter, but I don't feel that way. I'm not an evil man. I've done terrible things, but I'm not evil. Everything I've ever done was because I had to._

For as long as he could remember he had wanted to be the best and most perfect soldier he could possibly be. But the perfect soldier was a thing without feelings, without opinion or remorse, something that could do the unthinkable and never once hesitate or regret.

The perfect soldier was a machine.

_But I'm a man, I'm not a machine. I never wanted to be a robot. None of us did. We had to so we could survive. We had to stop feeling or they'd have killed us all._

Derek turned his head to the sunlight again as crow calls echoed above him. He didn't have very long.

He didn't know why he did what he did next, how he remembered it, or why it was even worth the pain, but with more effort than Atlas could accomplish; Derek Reese reached around behind him, bloodied and broken fingers pawing for the strip of plastic attached to his radio. He hooked it and brought it around, prompting a fresh rush of blood from the wound on his abdomen, and prayed that this would work.

"If any one can hear me, I'm going to keep transmitting as long as I can," he mumbled, double-thumbing the push-to-talk and brought the radio next to his mouth. The pain didn't matter anymore. "This is Derek Reese… I need help… they took John… they took John and put on the train…"

There was a strange sense of disconnection from what he was doing, a schizophrenia, like his body and a part of his mind were on autopilot, carrying out some pre-programmed set of instructions that had been hardwired into him.

It was the will to live. The will to survive. The will to keep going when you were defeated for no other reason than to say you'd tried. The will that no machine would ever have.

When Derek accepted that, when he resigned himself to whatever end awaited him, the memories came flooding back in. It was like someone had flicked a switch.

_John. The mercs. The train. Oh shit!_

The gruff voice in his head was his own again and barked out orders like the drill sergeant from hell, banishing the pain and all that came with it for what it was: as a figment of the mind. The voice was the only medic he needed as it shored up his backbone, gave a shot of do-or-die spirit in his arm and put the steel ball bearings back in his nutsack.

_John wouldn't quit. Sarah wouldn't quit. And Kyle sure-as-hell wouldn't either._

Derek shook off the cobwebs, seeing clearly now as though it were the first time. Half the world was still tinged blood-red with a detached retina, but he could see the radio clear enough, and that he was no more than ten feet from the ground.

_Need to think. Need a plan. Need to get out of this tree without killing myself._

He wasn't going to get out of this himself. His arms were too restricted by the pressure of the straps beneath his arms and even if he did, he was too far from the trunk to climb down. He could have tried to shrug himself out of the harness and drop down, but in his condition, falling from even this height could kill him.

His instincts to go for the radio and make a distress call were right, he decided. It might attract the wrong type of attention, but there was precious little choice. Maybe Cameron had got hold of a radio by now. _He'd_ managed to, and he felt pretty confident that she was probably doing much better than he was.

He pressed the radio again, "I'm in the forest… not sure where… can't be far from the old marshalling yards to the south of the town." He looked around to try to find a landmark, but all he saw was trees and a near-vertical cliff face at the base of his tree. There were a lot of rocks lying about, all standing out in a rather unnatural contrast to everything else. "There's a lot of slate on the ground here… quartz maybe… not sure… it might have been mined here once…"

He took a few breaths to regain some strength. Pain might only be a phantom, but it was a daunting one. He lifted his thumb off the push-to-talk. The instant he did, the speaker came alive:

"…_said if you can hear me, I know where you are. I'm coming to get you."_

Derek was too stunned to speak, overjoyed and frightened all at once by the crackled transmission. Was it a friend or foe? He didn't recognise the voice, but over radios it was always had to tell.

"Say again! Transmission not received. Say again!"

There was an agonising wait, then, _"I said I know roughly where you are from your description. I'm heading that way now. I have a radio directional finder so I can locate you, but you have to keep transmitting!"_

Derek nodded, as though the gesture could be seen, too enthusiastically for his wounds' liking. "Understood… but I don't know how long my battery will last." Or himself for that matter. "How far away are you? _Who_ are you? How did you get hold of a radio?"

There was another pause and Derek feared the worst. He was talking to a merc and they were coming to finish him off.

"_I'm about six miles to your north driving a yellow Dodge Challenger, I'm the town sheriff, and I've got a radio because I'm a fucking cop," _Bacchus roared out of the speaker._ "The same one you left tied to a chair in his own living room, asshole!"_

####

Daniel Phillips gazed through the cloud of cigarillo smoke in the sanctum of his private cabin. His eyes were fixed upon the glitter of gold light reflecting off an antique pocketwatch as he held its elegant chain, watching as the seconds ticked by with methodical certainty.

This was his favourite type of chronometer—erudite, classical, elegant—the device of a connoisseur and a gentleman. He could remember the day he had bought it. Remembered it like it was yesterday. A moment in time so long ago it felt like another life: February 11th, 1963.

It was the same day he had arrived from the future.

To look upon himself in a mirror, even _he_ could scarcely believe, and no other would ever suspect that he was going to turn seventy-five this November. The reasons for which would forever remain his most guarded little secret. Like Dorian Gray before him: he had no intention of looking upon the likeness of his own painting and even less intention of boasting about it to his enemies, no matter how much satisfaction it might bring.

Maybe that was where he had got his alias from. Dorian _Gray_. Kevin _Gray_.

He'd been branded a 'Gray' in the future, and when it became clear there had been none for him there, he travelled back in time with the means and say-so of his greatest enemy. It still galled him in the dead of night when he couldn't sleep, that he had had to beg his greatest rival to save his own life when all his dreams for _Keadas_ and a human Utopia had been turned to ruin by blind fools too stupid to understand he was helping them.

General Connor, of course, had been magnanimous. He had shown mercy where none was due, forgiven the betrayer the way the he never would have in turn. Connor was like that. _You can only make peace with your enemies,_ he used to say. It was never enough for Connor to defeat his enemies and neither did he take much pleasure in killing. He preferred to make them crawl, make them bend the knee and lick boot, show them they were wrong to ever oppose him in the first place.

John Connor was humanity's saviour, and he, Daniel Phillips, if left unchecked, would be the engineer of its destruction.

Phillips huffed to himself. _The Engineer._ It was a mocking double entendre he had been christened with. _The Garbage Man_ would have been more appropriate. The man everybody needs, but nobody wants around after the job was done.

There had been a price for his liberty of course. Connor's mercy came at a price. He was tasked with a mission that he alone was uniquely qualified: build a time displacement device for the Resistance to use in the past. Connor was always hedging his bets, secreting resources and laying provisions for use somewhere down the line. He'd had no idea why he wanted a time machine built in the middle of the 20th century, or if it had ever been used, but Phillips was a man of his word if nothing else. He had built the machine into the unique steel framework of the Security Trust of Los Angeles bank, just like he had promised, and had paid his debt in full.

What Connor never specified though—was what Phillips should do when he was finished.

No terms and conditions or restrictions of parole had been placed upon him after he had fulfilled his obligations. It was assumed he would just live out his life amidst the pre-digital age and hope to die before Judgement Day.

_Oh John,_ he smiled to himself. _Sometimes you just had so little imagination._

Daniel Phillips had not sat idle. Neither had he laid down and died. Not when he was living in the pinnacle of the American Dream. It was the 1960s. Communism and capitalism were going head-to-head, both sides reaching for the Moon; there was can-do spirit and free love everywhere and beneath it all: ridiculous wealth and unlimited prosperity for anyone who reached out and grabbed it.

Daniel Phillips had reached out, but it was the Engineer that had ensured that his reach did not exceed his grasp.

He had started small and unassuming, secretly selling his first invention in 1964 to a pair of basement-dwelling halfwits named Kemeny and Kurtz, simultaneously getting his first foot on the ladder of wealth and setting humanity on course for technological oblivion. Phillips had no problems with that, or with letting those two fools take the credit. Not so long as he ultimately got the money. The last thing he wanted was to get his name in the history books.

Connor wouldn't stay his hand a second time. He'd send one of his lantern-jawed elites to take care of him. One of the ones with the weird accent probably.

After that early success and the life-giving capital that came with it, his front company had gone from strength-to-strength, introducing technologies from the future through numerous third-parties, always reaping the maximum profit.

He had capitalised from world events too; buying and selling shares at the most opportune moments, betting big on major sports events. His superb knowledge of history drew his map to fortune and ensured he took complete advantage when things were to peak and dive.

9/11 had been a particularly good payday.

In these shadowy and underhand beginnings, Kaliba had been born.

Not long after the towers had come down he had gotten involved in military contracts. Not just in the U.S., but in Russia and the Far East too. Once the stingy nucleus of communism had been excised and transplanted with a solid gold capitalist heart. The former Pinkos had wanted to modernise their militaries with Western innovation and the Russians and Chinese had been eager to invest in his dynamic new company. Back at home, the War of Terror meant making money had never been easier—especially when the U.S. went to war and had gone on a psychotic spending spree that had made his eyes role to the ping of cash registers.

He had so much money now it was embarrassing; so many friends in governments across the globe that would pander to him behind-the-scenes and turn a blind eye whenever he wanted. He had used that influence to get funding and permits, change laws and redirect resources into building research centres all across the country to study the most advanced Skynet technologies. Cyberdyne, one of Kaliba's many such centres, had come into possession of a terminator's remains in the early 80s, catapulting their technology and his plans forward. But whilst Cyberdyne concentrated on the mechanical and the technological, Kaliba itself had moved on to the biological.

Amidst the charred metallic wreckage of the hyperalloy forearm were microscopic fragments from the biological covering—enough to study, enough to learn from—enough to culture and grow. It had led to whole new breakthroughs in medicine and pharmacology and had kick-started the fields of genome mapping and genetic engineering, but all of that had been incidental. Phillips had known precisely what he had in his hands.

The cybernetic tissue was undifferentiated, capable of repairing and recovering from any injury. It would take billions of dollars and another twenty-five years to develop the necessary technologies; but his dream of Keadas, long thought dead, was once again within grasp.

When the younger version of Connor had found him five years ago, he was an old man, dying from the cancer that had overtaken his frail human body. He had resigned himself to the small victory that he had lived a life more than most, but Connor's visit had opened old wounds inside him of the war he had once lost against his counterpart in the future. Twofold when he had learnt of Cameron's pregnancy, and that the two of them had achieved by accident what he had wasted an entire lifetime chasing – a superior alternative to either man or machine. A new species of human.

He had been on dialysis when he was given the news, barely a week after young Connor had left. His laboratories in Europe had finished sequencing the terminator DNA, isolating the synthetic genes that gave it the unparalleled regenerative abilities that would save his life. He had begun treatment immediately and in under a month the cancer had gone into full remission. After a month all the cartilage in his joints had been repaired and he no more arthritis. By eight months he'd had old surgical pins removed and spent each morning combing the grey from his hair to make way for the black follicles beneath. After two years of daily treatment he had shed nearly forty years and was a fit and vigorous man again.

Today he only required a weekly injection to maintain the change and hoped with further refinement he would be able to live like this forever—true biological immortality—but his inferior human genes stubbornly refused to embrace the change permanently. _You were not born this way_, was one of his scientist's excuses. _Your DNA was set the moment you were conceived and it can never be permanently altered._ He even predicted that the gene therapy that had restored his youth would one day lose its effectiveness.

Phillips had seen him dead for that—he refused to abide pessimists.

He decided what was needed was an augmentation to the gene therapy, something to shore up the flaws in its design. Hybridisation of humans into semi-terminators was an old project Skynet had abandoned years ago, one he had never felt was worth pursuing. But if he could marry the advantages of both fields, it might just solve the problem.

He had chosen the forgotten township of Redwood as a test bed for the hybrid experiments. It was the perfect location: within U.S. borders and the jurisdiction of powerful men that owed him favours, but isolated enough from the rest of the world so that it would be easy to keep under wraps.

When he had discovered that a young couple named John and Cameron were living there – with a little three year-old _hybrid_ of their own – well it just seemed kismet to him.

The phone on a nearby table started bleeping gently. He reached over and pressed the speaker.

"What is it?" he asked and lifted his cigarillo.

"_It's Raptor One,"_ his loyal terminator began bluntly.

Phillips breathed out and watched the thick tobacco smoke swirl around in the air. "Good news or bad?"

"_They're overdue and they're not responding to radio communication."_

"Well that _was_ the plan." He drained the contents of a small whiskey glass and pulled a smart phone from inside his jacket. Sending a third of his mercenary force to retrieve the Cerberus was one of the master strokes of this operation. Either they would subdue the creature and retrieve the Connor girl for future study, or they would be completely annihilated and he'd make a 33% saving on the personnel budget.

His thumb clicked across the phone, launching a custom-made application he had written for a single purpose and a map of Redwood and the surrounding valley filled the screen. A few moments later it triangulated a position deep within the forest, near the radio mast and the ranger station, highlighting it with a blinking red dot. He was somewhat surprised by that.

"The Cerberus hasn't gone anywhere," he noted with some curiosity as he stubbed his cigarillo into a polished bronze ashtray. Maybe the creature was eating the bodies of Raptor One? "It's still just sitting out there by the radio mas—"

Phillips stopped talking and became very still. His mind raced as his fingers stopped moving, even when the burning tobacco singed the tips.

"_Sir?"_

He stood up and snatched the phone from the receiver, bringing it up to his ear. "When was the last transmission from Raptor One?"

"_21:33 hours," _the machine answered with neutrality._ "Is something wrong?"_

Phillips ignored him, rubbed the bridge of his nose and thought hard, his mind crunching the dozen or so most probable scenarios, but they all ended with the same conclusion.

Phillips let out a breath and brought his tar stained fingers to his forehead.

"Has the hybridisation equipment been loaded onboard the train?"

"_The last storage containers are being brought on now."_

Phillips glanced out of the window to the mercenaries on the base.

"_Quietly_, I want you to get Raptor Two onboard the train, bring all the necessary arms and supplies needed, then get us out of here," he ordered, almost under his breath least someone hear. "Refuel the choppers and get them back to Fairchild as soon as possible."

The robot was silent for a second before responding. _"What will you tell the Air Force when not all of their helicopters come back?"_

"That I'll buy them some new ones." He threw down the phone and clenched his hind teeth so hard he could hear the blood flowing in his ears. Her should have seen something like this coming and taken that metal bitch out when he had the chance. Cameron had been nothing but a bane to him from the moment old-Connor had created her.

The only image in his mind's eye was the Cerberus' extracted control chip sitting on a table in the ranger station, or discarded amidst a pile of mercenary corpses—as impotent and useless as the C4 failsafe module attached to its base. He pressed the detonation switch anyway and watched as the red dot blinked out of existence.

He huffed, dissatisfied, as somewhere out in the forest depths a ranger station was blown to smithereens.

####

Lance was reading the next chapter of his book and trying not to strain when he was interrupted by a thunderous pounding against the door of the portable toilet.

"For-crying-out-loud! Is _nothing_ sacred to you animals?" he yelled through the closed door before resuming his twofold activity. The unseen intruder refused to be cowed however and thudded on the moulded plastic again.

"_Lance! We've got a big problem out here!"_

"I've got a _bigger_ problem in here!"

"_The train's pulling out of the station!"_

"I know the feeling!"

"_No! I mean the _actual_ train is leaving! The choppers and pulling out too!"_

Lance drew silent, not sure he'd heard right. Then he heard the rising thunder of rotor blades coming to life and the metal-on-metal whine of locomotion.

His book hit the floor and he yanked up his pants before throwing the door wide open, nearly knocking Sergeant Sadler off his feet. "Where the _hell_ are they going?" He pulled the radio off Sadler's shoulder harness and barked into the receiver. "Hey! You guys forgetting something?"

Lance's only response was a whirlwind of downdraft and a cloud of swirling dirt and grass blades as all the remaining helicopters lifted up into the sky and the rear end of the train rolled out of the compound over rusty tracks, screeching and squealing like a herd of stabbed pigs until its wheels found adequate friction and it vanished into the forest.

"Son of a bitch!" He was never going to get paid—not if he was one of the ones they left behind.

He hurled the radio after the train in a useless gesture and roared with fury, kicking over the nearest crate of supplies.

"What do we do now?" asked Sadler, looking as though he didn't know what to do with himself.

Lance had no such indecisiveness and began marching back to his tent. "I know what _I'm_ doing," he threw over his shoulder as Sadler tried to keep up. "I'm cashing in my gear and getting…"

Lance, Sadler and every mercenary left in the compound stopped in their tracks and turned towards the forest. Suddenly, above the trees came the largest flock of birds Lance had ever seen outside of a Hitchcock movie, squawking as they swarmed overhead in a great cloud of thunderous sound. "What the hell now?" he cried as mercenaries scattered in every direction, looking frantically for cover as they were carpet-bombed with guano.

When they assault was finally over, Lance stood and tried to compose himself, but he was almost instantly back beneath the cover of a supply crate when the compound was besieged by a second wave, this time from the ground. Deer burst from the tree line, leaping between tents and still scattering men. Amidst them were enormous Elk, their giant antlers tearing through tent covers, knocking over stacks of ammo crates and trampling mercenaries into the ground.

Some of the mercs began shooting while others ran, more fearful of wild animals than armed enemies. In the distance a claymore went off at the camp perimeter, raining the limbs and innards of deer everywhere. The blood rain that came down seemed to insight many of the mercs into a frenzy and they began shooting more haphazardly, taking out game like they were on safari and before long two men were hit by friendly fire.

"Cease fire!" Lance kept yelling over the chaos and eventually most complied.

When it was all over, the mercenary camp looked as though a tornado had passed through it. Tents lay scattered and ruined, equipment was strewn everywhere, survivors that staggered to their feet slipped about on blood and shit whereas men who had been caught in the open lay wounded in the field.

"Medic!" someone yelled somewhere. Another answered with, "What fuckin' medics? _They_ all left on the choppers!"

Lance got to his feet and brushed off the debris. Sadler stood more slowly, shell-shocked and shivering. "What in the fu…"

"EVERYBODY TO ME!" Lance balled out at the top of his lungs, face sterner and more sober than anyone had ever seen it. "Get the wounded out the way and arm up!" He ordered when enough of them had gathered. "We are about to get some company!"

Those were all the words he needed and in the blink of eye nearly fifty men were beneath his command and were carrying out his orders.

"What do think all that was about?" Sadler asked, pulling a tuft of turf out of his collar. "Lance?" He turned around but Lance had already gone, jogging over to the antenna farm on the other side of the compound where he began climbing the metal rungs of the central watchtower.

When he reached the top he grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked out over the canopy of the forest, off in the direction that the animals had evacuated. Nothing caught his eyes at first, just treetops swaying in the wind. Then he saw it.

One tree in the distance swayed a little too far… then the one after it… then the next. It shrank out of view so fast it looked like a steamroller had rolled over it. Lance swallowed and felt his bowels churn.

"_Shit, shit, shit and fuck!_"

He dropped the binoculars and sped down the ladder so fast he nearly fell and broke his neck.

"Lance!" Sadler had just caught up to him when he was spun around as Lance stormed past in the opposite direction. "What is it?"

Lance didn't answer. Instead he sprinted his way into the armoury, grabbed an M240 machine gun from a rack and pulled back the heavy charging handle.

"Lance!" Sadler burst in behind him, looking whiter than a priest before mass. "Seriously, what the fuck is going on? Are we about to walk into a world of shit?"

Lance was about to answer, but the words died when the stowed weaponry began rattling in their racks and ammunition jingled as the ground beneath their feet began trembling to a rhythmic, quadrupedal thunder. The hairs on his neck went on end and his heart hammered in his chest.

"No kid," he shook his head, grabbed an ammo box and tore it open, laying the ammunition belt in the feeder. "The world of shit is about to walk in on _us_…"

####

The wine bottle stood tall in the centre of the table, uncorked many minutes ago to allow it to breath by the Engineer's terminator. It looked very expensive and hard to come by; all of the writing on the label was in italicized French and there was a rich aroma emanating from its content.

John had considered several times about knocking it to the floor.

_Hold your hand and your temper, John,_ he told himself over and over again. Sometimes he had to remind himself that he wasn't a petulant teenager anymore and could no longer afford its luxuries. He was a man now; a husband and a father. Those were the things that made him who he was, not a destiny or divine calling; he was his own man, his own keeper, his own council, and now was the moment when all that would be tested.

Phillips had left him more than an hour ago with his terminator lapdog to keep an eye on him. A little time later the terminator had excused itself to the mini-bar at the rear of the cabin, keeping John in its vision as it had made a telephone call. From what John could gather, it hadn't gone well as a few minutes later he saw elite mercenaries board the train once the loading of equipment crates was finished, then they had started moving. It had obviously come as a surprise for the mercs who'd been left behind as some of them chased after and hurled beer cans and abuse at the executive cabin.

The train was deep within the forest and the mountains now, the train track following a meandering swath carved through the landscape that followed mean contours and avoided obstacle only when absolutely necessary. Judging by their speed and time travelled, John figured they were ten miles out by now, and getting father away by the minute.

_I hope you're still out there Cam and you've got our baby safe. _But as he made his silent prayer he couldn't help the smile on his face.

Sarah was safe—she had her mother to protect her. Nothing came between a Connor woman and her child.

John may have been his own man, keeper and council—but Cameron was his champion.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, John," the Engineer said as he emerged from the sanctum of his forward cabin, freshly dressed and looking every bit the jet-setting millionaire. In truth, John couldn't have cared less if he had disappeared into his cabin and never returned.

"I don't mind," he lied convincingly.

Phillips approached the table, pulled out a chair and sat opposite. "Oh, I'm sure you _did_ mind," he called him out. "I'm sure you mind about a great many things that I've done lately. The legendary John Connor must always take umbrage to the 'immoral' and the 'corrupt'."

The comment was meant to be casual, and that was how it came across, but something about it nagged at him. It wasn't the first time he'd heard the subtle resentment, so much so that he had to mention it: "You keep talking about me as though I were somebody else," he began, carefully. "I'm not a general and I never led humanity in a war against Skynet. I'm an ordinary guy with ordinary ambitions and an ordinary job from nine-to-five. I like weekends and barbecues, spending time with my wife and daughter. Whatever issues you had with my counterpart in the future, you'd be better off leaving them there, they're wasted on me."

John could have told him a lie. He could have pandered to the Engineer's every grievance and said sorry. He could have even spun him a yarn of first-class bullshit so thick that he would've needed waders to get across it. But he _knew_, with every instinct that he trusted, that Daniel Phillips was not to be taken in so lightly. The man was too cagey, too smart; little wonder his counterpart had kept him at arm's length. He would have smelled bullshit as though it was its namesake—and by now John had already frequented cattle shed of obfuscation too many times.

He had to start coming clean. But by itself, unvarnished, it would be the quickest way to getting his head blown off if Phillips ken he was being played. He had to be smart and make Phillips _believe._ He had to seem swayed by his arguments, but grudgingly. He had to slowly come around to his way of thinking, but not _all_ the way. He had to lay a trap within a trap that the Engineer wouldn't see until he was so far past the point-of-no-return he wouldn't even remember when it happened.

John smiled inwardly. It would be a bit like tricking Sarah into having a bath, just thankfully more straightforward.

"Let's cut the crap," he began, deciding to go straight for the heart. "The last time we met, you were an old man, bound to a wheelchair and on your last legs." He gestured to Phillips' youthful appearance. "If it's just profit you're after, as you claim, trying selling the secret to _that_. You'd make a fortune."

It was around this moment that the Engineer decided that the wine had had sufficient time to breath and he began pouring, John first and then himself. He said nothing whilst he completed this pious task and it was almost a full minute until he sat the bottle back down again.

"Maybe I'm Daniel Junior," he shrugged. "Maybe I'm a clone or maybe I found a way to reverse the aging process. I _am_ a genius after all." He smiled then, wicked and playful. "Maybe I'm just a good old-fashioned terminator replacement."

John's eyebrows raised a fraction, but Phillips raised a hand and shook his head.

"I'm kidding of course," he grinned, before adding solemnly, "I know, I know. Some things we just shouldn't joke about."

John made no response other than to reach for his glass and take a mouthful of the rich, burgundy liquid. It was far too dry for him, coating the inside of his mouth with bitter fur, but Phillips drank greedily and with a disciplined flurry of practiced eloquence, savouring every drop like a parched man in a desert that had found the Fountain of Youth.

_Maybe the secret really _was_ the wine,_ John mussed half-seriously. Cameron had always insisted it was good for him.

"Your daughter is very special."

John stilled and battered down his temper, setting his jaw until his cheeks flexed.

"Her kind, huh… _their_ kind… has a very unique ability to survive."

"How?" Asking a question seemed to focus John's mind.

"They absorb useful genetic sequences and incorporate them into their own to make themselves better life forms, primarily by means of ingestion." Phillips dumbed down for him, vaguely surprised John had asked. "They're not the only organism that can do this, though all the others are no more genetically complicated than a jellyfish."

"It makes me wonder you even bothered with Hybrids?" John pointed out. "Sounds to me that… _Cerberi…_ are pretty much superior to everything."

Phillips twitched a brow at the name coinage, deciding almost instantly to steal it. "_Superior_ to a fault," he corrected. "It makes them unpredictable and difficult to control, which is rather antithetical to my ultimate goals. Their very existence was a mistake—Skynet getting overconfident—it did that towards the end.

"Eventually they grow too powerful, too unpredictable, completely out of control, even to themselves. That's what happened to the first one." He knit his fingers together and leaned in, "This is what makes young Sarah such an interesting little paradox."

John didn't rise to it—one more slight against his daughter made little difference now. He stuck to what really mattered, "What kind of paradox?"

"She's a contradiction that shouldn't be able to exist: Cameron's perfect genes," he glanced John up and down, "and your mongrel lineage. It's an incredible fluke, one in a billion really, or maybe human DNA is a more favourable medium for synthetic genetics than I previously thought… I haven't determined yet."

John shook his head. "Sarah isn't anything like that. She's a happy and healthy girl. There's nothing abnormal about her."

"That's the point I'm making, John," Phillips said, smiling. "_Think_ about it. I know it hurts, but _try_.

"Has she ever gotten sick? Ever been injured? How does a child of five have the knowledge she does or the instincts? You think she gets it all from good parenting and watching TV?"

John was about to dismiss him outright and call him bat-shit to his face, but then the thought slipped in and it was too late. _Had_ Sarah ever been sick? _I'd remember._ Had she ever been hurt? _No, not once._ She knew so much too, things she couldn't possibly have learnt; things that only came with life experience. _This was bullshit._

"This is _bullshit_!" John barked, but the Engineer ploughed on like a freight train, laden with the hazardous cargo of truth.

"She knows what she knows because knowledge is ultimately genetic. The same way a bird knows how to fly or how an infant knows to hold its breath underwater. It's passed down from one generation to the next, but in a form we mere mortals are only barely aware of.

"She knows everything _you_ know. Everything your _mother_ and _father_ knew. Maybe not consciously yet or even as specific memories, but she _will_ remember eventually. That's why she _appears_ to be so intelligent." Phillips leaned back from the table, straightening the front of his shirt. "No five-year-old knows when they're being psychoanalysed!"

John ground his teeth tighter, hating how he'd been goaded into talking about Sarah so clinically. It wouldn't matter to him what she was; he would have always loved her no matter what.

"Are you implying that Cameron and I make children that are perfect?"

The Engineer pulled a face. "Don't let it go to your head," he rebuked. "By _accident_ the two of you combined in a very favourable way to produce something extraordinary and more than the some of your parts." He looked wistful for a moment before continuing. "It seems that you've achieved by happenstance what I've strove for my entire life: a being that is more than humanity could ever be. _Better_ than human; beyond human—_superhuman._"

The man smiled wildly and wasn't looking at John any more. He was in his own world now, one he was trying desperately to make real, but the words were also tinged with a veiled anger, that they had beaten him to the finish line in a race that existed only in his mind.

It made the needle on John's psycho-metre spike.

"Why bother with Hybrids when I now have the key to the real deal?" In a movement faster than John could follow, Phillips produced a test tube of blood. _Sarah's_ blood, he knew instantly. There was far too much of it for his liking, and he hated the way Phillips looked at it with voracity and longing, letting it catch the sun's light—the light of creation.

"I've had a chance to perform some preliminary tests," he turned the vial gently, watching the ruby Ichor cling to the inner walls. "The genome contains similar genes to those that give terminator living tissue its ability to heal, only in Sarah and the Cerberus it's hundreds of times more powerful, and far more thrilling in implication."

"What sort of implication?" John frowned, only humouring him now. He had already made his decision.

"How about _biological immortality_, Connor?" his smile vanished, all serious and awestruck now as he lifted the vial before him. "As long as the cells are properly nourished, and barring the most catastrophic of injuries… I don't think either of them _can_ die." His smile returned and he laughed. "I suppose every father hopes his child will outlive him."

John tried hard to keep it down, to keep down the bile of hatred he had for this man he had only met twice in his life. But there were so much that was reprehensible about him, so many twisted and warped ideas and plans within plans that ran at a complete tangent to John's values that it made him sick.

It came up and out of him from deep inside like projectile vomit, and he aimed it straight at Phillips.

"More wine?"

"No thanks," John interdicted him, tired of this mummer's farce. "I've swallowed enough crap for one day."

Phillips' arm froze mid-pour, cutting off the flow. "I beg your pardon?"

"You," John breathed in, putting the necessary vehemence behind his next words: "are fucking _crazy_."

He watched the light of bravado and amiability drain from the Engineer's eyes like he'd sprung a leak, replaced by the first flicker a fire that grew with each passing sentence uttered from John's mouth as he swung a wrecking ball through the hours of bullshit, brinksmanship and verbal fencing that had preceded this moment of truth.

"I wondered why my future-self would send you here, but now it makes perfect sense," John eyes were hard as stone, his voice equally immutable. "He sent you here for _me_—so _I'd_ know what becomes of a man when he has too much power and too little of anything else."

But it was more than that though. The Engineer was no mere nut with some extremist ideas about eugenics and destiny—he was a man that could _actually_ do it. He had access to limitless wealth and resources, technology centuries ahead of their time. He had already shown John a taste of his powers: mercenaries, hardware, technology, the ability to manipulate on a global scale. How else could he have prevented Judgement Day?

It all made sense now, in the heartbeats between words. The veil had been snatched from his eyes and John had never been clearer. He had been too afraid before to even contemplate why the world had abandoned nuclear deterrence, but now it made perfect sense—it was because _this_ man had made it so.

Phillips didn't want Judgement Day to happen any more than he did; the only difference was that he was in a far greater a position to stop it happening.

"So what did you do?" He asked him. "Give everyone the technology to shoot down ICBMs so they'd be no point anymore?" It was John's turn to smile now. "Pull the rug out from under Skynet so even if it _did_ go online, it'd have no arsenal to destroy the world?"

Phillips put the bottle back down. When he spoke it was low and with finality.

"It was easier than I thought it would be, to be honest," he admitted. "Why keep an insanely expensive nuclear deterrent that doesn't deter anymore? Especially when you've got a budget deficit the size of Alaska." He gave a huff of contempt. "You should have seen them behind the scenes and how quickly they fell over each other to be the first to go non-nuclear and claim the crown of 'hero' and 'humanitarian' in a big speech about 'humanity' and 'our children's children'."

"Politicians, huh," but there was no humour in John's voice.

Phillips shared his expression as they experienced the only moment of mutual agreement and joint victory they would ever have together. But Judgement Day would be the only place their minds aligned before parting in opposite directions, towards goals and philosophies so contrary that they could never co-exist.

John felt the decision coalesce inside him more certainly and assuredly than any he had taken in his life:

No matter what happened to him—no matter even what happened to his family—this man _had_ to die. He was too dangerous to be alive.

Across the table and an impassable canyon of thought, the Engineer had reached the same conclusion.

####

Cameron jammed her foot harder onto the accelerator when she spotted the rear end of the train, gunning the battered vehicle down the old jeep trail that wound its way more-or-less parallel with the train tracks. Her face was focussed and determined, her eyes narrow and grim, an arm of inhuman strength shifting the gear lever with rattlesnake-speed as the other cowered the steering wheel into submission.

From the moment she had heard Derek's dying transmission she had been a wrecking ball of single-mindedness in her pursuit of the escaping train.

Beside her in the passenger seat, Sarah clung to her chair with dainty little hands and stared wide-eyed through the windshield at the blur of landscape as it sped by. It felt a little bit, she thought, like approaching light-speed—where everything coalesced into an area directly in front of them as a distortion of blurry light.

She tried to swallow, but the force of inertial made the saliva in her mouth cling to the unobtainable recesses of her mouth and made her stomach do barrel rolls. For the hundredth time her hand strained to the fastening of her seat belt and tested it.

"Mom!" she called out against the roar of the road. "I pretty sure this is illegal!"

Cameron's attention never broke from her work. "Technically it's _unlawful_, dear," she answered matter-of-factly.

"What's the difference?"

"One means against the law; the other is a very sick bird."

Sarah turned her head and looked at her mother as though she'd gone crazy.

Cameron had a small but proud smile, though it shrank away when she saw her daughter's expression. "That was meant as levity; I heard it on television once."

Sarah continued staring.

"I was attempting to alleviate your fear of crashing by distracting your mind with a humorous anecdote."

Her mother was speaking normally again, which put Sarah more at ease than anything. She put a friendly pat on her arm. "We'll work on it, mom."

Cameron spotted a pothole ahead. "Hold on!"

Sarah clenched her teeth and rode the spine-jarring jolt as the jeep rode over the crater.

"Is dad going to be okay?"

"Only if we reach him in time."

Sarah thought about that for a moment.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Drive _faster!"_

Cameron complied with what little she could; the jeep's engine was already operating at maximum capacity.

She stole a glance out of her side window and saw the train curve a little closer to the jeep trail. _A few more meters are all I need,_ she calculated, but then seconds later the two tracks diverged again and they were pushed father away. They lost speed as well when the tyres left the ground when they vaulted a hump in the road and Cameron had to do the work to catch up all over again.

After more minutes of white-knuckle chase, the trail got close again, separated now only by underbrush and the occasional tree. The going had never been better, and Cameron made the decision in a nanosecond.

She yanked the wheel hard and the jeep darted between a clutch of saplings and a half-sunken boulder, tearing up a plume of shredded shrubbery and a cascade of flying turf as the vehicle's fender gouged through a tuft of soil, kicked up, and the entire vehicle took off, tipping forward with the weight of the engine as it reached the apex of its ballistic arc and landed smack-bang between the tracks.

Ballast kicked up in a shower of gravel as the tyres dug into the ground between the steel alloy rails and a little more of the jeep's suspension gave up in submission. Cameron shifted the gears down until the tyres found purchase again and then she floored it, roaring the tattered jeep up behind the train's caboose until the bullbar was almost touching.

"Sarah," she called out. "Take off your seat belt and get onto my lap."

Sarah turned to her mother as though she'd lost her mind again.

"Okay, _now_ you've got to be joking!"

"Hurry up!"

Sarah did as she was told and Cameron held the jeep steady as the girl threaded herself under her arm and straddled her mother's lap, her little arms wrapping around her chest where they clung as tightly as possible.

Cameron balled her fist and smashed it though the windshield, turning the laminated glass into an opaque cobweb before ripping it out of its housing and throwing it over the roof of the jeep where it tumbled through the air and then smashed into a million pieces.

The wind whipped their hair as it roared in and Cameron took up a length of prepared rope from her foot well, tying it to the steering wheel and stamped her foot so hard on the accelerator that the peddle became embedded in the floor. She put one arm around Sarah and got up out of the chair, mounting the engine hood with the sure footedness of a surfer and crossed its length in a pair of strides and threw herself across the three-foot gap that separated them from the rear platform.

Her boots landed with a thud and no sooner had she found her balance than the door flung open and a bleary-eyed mercenary strode out, assault rifle gripped in his arms.

"What in the name of…"

Cameron grabbed the end of the barrel and jerked it upwards, tearing it from the merc's hands and buried the sight post up his nose. He wailed in agony and clutched his bloodied face until she grabbed the front of his combat vest and flung him off the platform. He landed face first into the jeep's driver's seat, his legs thrashing wildly over the hood. The jeep then violently changed direction as it clipped one of the rail heads, went sailing off the tracks, and ploughed headlong into the breadth of an enormous tree trunk.

As the fuel tank ignited and the vehicle and tree went up in smoke, the red flames were reflected like jewels in Sarah's bulging eyes.

"That was the most awesome thing I've ever seen, mom!" Sarah yelled over the wind.

Cameron drew her close and tore open the door to the train car.

_I've only just started,_ she vowed.

####

_Hope you liked it, because this one was a bitch to get finished._


	10. Chapter 10

**NOTES**: This is a sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created". I strongly recommend reading the previous stories first.

**SUMMARY**: John and Cameron have moved to an isolated and idyllic Northwest town so they can raise their daughter in peace and seclusion from the world. Then the killing starts happening. Sequel to "Fuzzy Dice" and "The Killer I Created".

**DISCLAIMER**: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.

* * *

**"Land of the Living"  
Chapter 10  
T.R. Samuels**

"I want you to stay here and keep out of sight."

Sarah frowned with mounting dissatisfaction as her mother made room for her inside the bowels of a wooden storage crate. Part of its contents had already been removed or repositioned to make room for her accommodation, and she now sported her latest fashion—two combat vests tied together to create an impromptu armour-plated blanket.

"If you hear someone coming, pull this over yourself and stay as still and as quiet as possible," her mother provided further instructions.

Sarah scrunched her lips with disgruntlement; so far her father's rescue was not going as she'd planned. "But I want to _help_," she enthused as Cameron took her beneath the arms and lifted her effortlessly into the crate.

"You _are_ helping…" Cameron insisted with expert neutrality, "…by _staying_ here."

Sarah was not to be dissuaded.

"But I _can_ help."

Her mother raised a dubious eyebrow, but made sure as to not seem as though she were dismissing her daughter's pleas out-of-hand. The last few hours had clearly indicated that Sarah was far from completely helpless.

"You cannot call upon your… _friend_ now." Cameron reminded her, "and I won't be able to function as effectively if I'm concerned for your wellbeing."

Sarah bristled, "but I…"

Cameron raised a stern finger, drawing the girl's attention to her even sterner eyes. Sarah could be headstrong to excess on occasion—encouraged, no doubt, by John's genes and indulgences—but now was not the time.

"_Stay_ here," she ordered. Then for added measure, "I _mean_ it."

For a moment, it didn't seem as though Sarah would back down. Then the defeat on her daughter's face became palpable and she shrank down into the crate like a wilting flower. All seemed satisfactory, but then Cameron detected that the girl's manner had adopted just the slightest nuance of masterfully feigned innocence. Her emerald eyes were tempered for resistance and her breathing had become regular and resolute.

Cameron's eyes drew together—skulduggery was afoot.

"Your body language and autonomic intonations are virtually identical to previous instances of disobedience. You _will_ comply with my instructions."

Sarah girded her hind teeth together. It was difficult and grossly unfair that a mother should have such a perfect recollection of one's litany of misdeeds. She wished she was more like her father; he didn't have such a good memory and could never stay mad at her long. She had ways of breaking his resolve too—with tears and doe-eyes and cherubic acts of adorability.

Her mother was immune to such persuasions.

"I will be _very_ disappointed if you disobey me," the words were stern, but the words were spoken in an anger-less statement. "You have proven multiple times that you can be wayward and prone to impulsion."

Cameron had to be clever here. Sarah was as wilful as her father and it had taken years to break _him_ in.

"I know. I'm sorry." Sarah tilted her head down and looked up at her mother though butterfly eyelashes and soul-destroying green eyes, big and glistening and gorgeous. She smiled like an angel, as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "_Love_ you mom…"

Cameron made like Glacier Peak—icy and immutable.

She leaned in closer and gave the girl a look of pure thunder that would make even the most suicidal of Resistance fighters think twice.

"_Stay_ here," she said with a mother's lethality, "or _else_."

Sarah froze up at her mother's calm severity, swallowing what felt like an entire chocolate cookie without any milk.

"Okay," she submitted finally, crossing her arms with a dramatic huff as the rebel inside her balled its fists.

Tenderness enveloped the place in Cameron's chest that otherwise would contain a heart. Despite her criticism to the contrary, she was illogically proud of her daughter's rebellious streak. Perhaps because it reminded her so much of John, or that deep down, Cameron was just as much a defiant chalk to loyal terminator cheese.

She leaned in a kissed her daughter on the cheek with all the love and tenderness she had.

"I love you very much and I'm proud of you," she assured her. "_Nothing_ is more important to me than you—not even your father." She leaned back and looked down upon a now flummoxed expression. It was very difficult, even at the best of times, for Cameron to articulate her feelings. At this moment, looking down at the innocuous face of her child, it felt all but impossible.

"I have to be something I haven't been for a long time," she tried to begin. "I'm _not_ human, but I _do_ understand the value of human life. For a long time I didn't, and it made me very good at what I was made to do," she tried to continue, but the words wouldn't come.

Sarah ruffled her brow, "what made you different?"

Cameron thought as hard as she could, scanning the nanoseconds of conscious thought that lay stored in the quantum network of her vast and impeccable memory. Her mouth spread into a genuine smile, the kind that made John fall to his knees and capitulate to anything.

"Your father," she said simply, as if the words were synonymous with divinity and liberty and everything good and noble that it made her want to savour every syllable. She smiled at that—John was not particularly spiritual, nor did he believe in any god. The most pious he became was during and immediately prior to an ejaculation.

"Everything good about your father is within _you_… and I won't allow that to die."

She gave her daughter one last kiss and then reached for the container lid, sliding the timber plinth closed. Her chest contracted as she sealed it shut, like she was closing a coffin, but so long as she kept anyone from passing her on her imminent journey up the train, then Sarah would be perfectly safe.

Her main concern now was for her husband—if he was still alive.

The caboose obviously served as the armoury of the train, bristling with every constituent of the mercenaries' impressive arsenal. As Cameron moved into the interior she came upon racks of assaults rifles, SMGs, hand guns, shotguns, packs of plastic explosive, grenades in every flavour, and strongbox-after-strongbox of clinking ammunition. If Cameron could dream, then this would be it—and nothing short of John's expertise could bring her this close to heaven.

She considered an M4A1 carbine assault rifle with a grenade launcher undercarriage, but quickly reconsidered—the fighting would be close quarters, making the weapon's length slow and unwieldy. John would be amongst the mercenaries too and explosives would be too dangerous. She discarded it and moved on, scanning the racks of weaponry with a connoisseur's eye and soon came upon a compact MP5 submachine gun. Very small and very accurate. She took it and inserted a full magazine and cocked it before wrapping its sling around her shoulder.

Next she found a Remington 870 shotgun with a saddle shell holder and foldable stock. This would be good, she thought, especially in the narrow confines of the carriages that would funnel mercenaries to her and capitalise on the scattering shot and lack of penetration that an assault rifle had. Cameron was a big believer in the shotgun. She hadn't always been—in her 'youth' it had been automatics all the way. Perhaps parenthood had mellowed her, or maybe she'd just grown wiser. She took the weapon up and fed round after fat round of cartridges into its hungry belly and filled the shell holder full.

There were two of her favourite Glock-17s on an upper shelf. Good ones as well. They had the finger stepping and cuts to the backstrap of their frames. It made them easier to hold than previous models. She took them and a pair of magazines for each before pushing back their sliders and tucking them into the back rim of her jeans.

The door from the caboose to the next carriage of the train stood ahead. Once she passed beyond, she was committed. She had a plan in mind, a critical component of which was that she allowed no one to pass her, least they retreat to the caboose and find a hiding Sarah. The mercenaries had to be pushed forward towards the head of the train, carrying fear and defeat like a plague to infect the mercenaries she hadn't faced yet, weakening their resolve and instilling terror from within.

Cameron did not experience fear the way humans did, but she understood its effects on them. Fear was a paralytic, robbing them of the one ability that set them a part from the animals, the same ability that made humans so dangerous—_thinking_. Thinking humans were organised humans, and she had seen many times what organised humans were capable of.

_Fear destroys will. Break their will and you break _them_._ John had said that to her once as they lay entwined in their cabin years ago after a bout of lovemaking—such was the pillow talk between a man you loved military strategy and a woman who loved shooting guns.

She hoped she wasn't too late. John would be buying time and waiting for the most opportune moment, she knew. But what if his captors had grown tired of waiting? What if they'd seen through his obfuscation? What if they would kill him the moment she launched her attack? What if Derek's transmission had been wrong and John wasn't on the train at all and she had endangered Sarah for nothing?

What if John was already dead?

That was the truth of it, what she feared more than anything. If John died she didn't know what she would do. She would be alone and frightened and raising Sarah by herself might be beyond her. She couldn't do it without John and his instincts in all things about Sarah, and the girl would be distraught without her father.

She felt her arms and legs stiffen with her increasingly morbid thoughts, robbing her of the decisiveness to act little pieces at a time. Doubt was like a lead balloon that inflated inside her, weighing her down and making her rethink decisions that only moments ago were crystal-clear in her mind. She began searching her memories for relevant data:

_Better to make a wrong decision then make no decision at all,_ John had said to her once.

But the price of a wrong decision was so high.

_Sometimes you just have to roll the dice,_ he'd said after she'd lost a game.

Cameron had never understood gambling.

_Nine times out of ten, your first instinct is the right one,_ as far as she knew, she didn't have any instincts, other than to shoot first and ask questions later.

"Mom?" The unexpectedness of Sarah's voice shocked her out of her thoughts. She turned and saw the girl peaking out from beneath the crate lid, her eyes bright orbs bathed in shadow. "Are you going to do anything?" she asked uncertainly.

Cameron was about to berate her for coming out of hiding, but instead her mouth turned upwards, thankful as the certainty and resolve rolled back into her like the tide.

"Get back in the crate," she said gently. "I'll be back with your father soon."

Sarah obeyed with a happy smile, and the moment she heard the lid slide shut again, Cameron turned to the doorway, drew her new shotgun, and kicked the door to the first carriage to splinters.

####

"Are you _in_ or are you _out_, John?" the Engineer demanded in a final ultimatum.

John gave the man across from him the courtesy of at least thinking about it, despite the fact he had already made up his mind.

On the other side of the table sat Phillips, looking like a dour and aloof bank manager in his impeccable suit and gold cufflinks that probably cost more than John earned in a year. He was watching him through narrowed eyes, looking for defiance or disagreement. He had a talent, John had noticed, for looking at people who disagreed with him as though they were crazy.

Beyond the Engineer stood the Delivery Guy—straight as a statue, eyes of flinty stone boring into him like drill bits. He—_it_—had a talent for looking at people as though they were already dead.

_Maybe I am_, John thought. But then Phillips could have killed him a hundred times already. Despite their long conversation and brinkman arguments, John was all but certain that he still hadn't gotten to discovering what Phillips really wanted from him.

_What can I possibly give him or Kaliba that he hasn't already got, or has taken from me?_

Despite his words to the contrary, John still felt that the man's bitterness ran deep enough to project on to _him_ all the years of anger and ill-feeling the Engineer and his former future-self had cultivated, and no amount of reasonable argument on his part would dissuade that.

_Maybe he needs my help_, he thought then. _He might have some problem he can't solve on his own and needs someone with knowledge of the future to fix it._ He smiled slightly at that—either things weren't as cushy in Kaliba as he'd like John to believe or the Engineer was simply too arrogant to ask.

Whatever his reasons, John had bought all the time he was likely to now, and it looked as though Cameron wasn't coming. He knew she was angry at him for letting Sarah go, but that last argument with her had hurt, and a moment of pessimism pained him deeply with the thought that she might have abandoned him. He didn't doubt her affection, but Cameron could be very cold and calculating when weighing up risks, and Sarah was worth his life twice over.

They had agreed long ago, after they'd not long become parents, that Sarah would always come before either of them.

_I guess it's time to pay the piper,_ he thought sullenly. It left a foul taste in his mouth, even worse than the wine. But if he was going to live, then he'd have to give Phillips what he wanted.

"Okay," John raised his palms in surrender. "_You_ were right, _I_ was wrong. You've proved that you're far more capable than I am at stopping Skynet and saving humanity." He put his hands in his lap and looked contrite. "You prevented Judgement Day and it looks like you've got everything else figured out too. Kaliba has Skynet and the Resistance's technology now and, like you said, there's money to be made. Take it from me, kids aren't cheap. If you're the man with the plan, then I want to me a part of it. If you agree to leave my family alone, I'll help you."

_Not enough._ John had to go all in or not at all.

"I'll _work_ for you," he clarified, his voice quivering in defeat.

The Engineer looked at him with those pale blue eyes for a long time, looking more fearsome than John had ever seen him as Delivery Guy began stepping around beside him.

_This is it_, John thought with finality.

But then Phillips raised a hand and the terminator stopped in its tracks.

A smile then slowly emerged across his mouth, etching a swathe of deep satisfaction that instantly made John want to smack it off his face. But he was committed now. He was playing the hand he'd been dealt and it was either going to kill him or save him.

_Don't show your hand now_, he thought. He still needed to make it look like he was torn.

"Enjoy it while it lasts," he put in for good measure.

Phillips took the minor insult in his stride. He was too pleased to be angry now.

"I can't tell you how long I've waited to see you crawl," he began, raising his hands before him and twirling a silver cigarette lighter between his thumb and finger. "You don't know how I've longed to see your sanctimonious, dim-witted, smug face beaten and driven from my memory forever." His voice had become a growl, the rage and hate broiling over the rim. "Which is probably why I'm having such a hard time buying it and don't believe a single word that you've said."

Above everything, John had to admit, the Engineer was an intelligent man. His only real failing, as far as John could tell, was that he had a need for other people to recognise he was an intelligent man. Genius always needs an audience.

"Yeah, you're right," John shrugged, done for now and partly glad the bullshit was over. "I'm not interested in dealing with you and I won't surrender who I am," he growled himself a little bit with his own loathing. "Your idea of a future is bat-shit and you won't live long enough to see it." He nodded at Delivery Guy as the terminator stood sentry a few feet away. "Your soldiers are either bought mercenaries or reprogrammed machines. Mine are free-thinkers and devout. I don't need to pay them for their loyalty. Look at the hell just _one_ of them as already given you… and he isn't even my _best_ one. Cameron's still to come."

"I'm terrified, John."

He wasn't. If anything, the only emotion the Engineer felt was indifference to Connor's threat. "I'm sure the fifty or so soldiers I have on this train will be terrified too." He turned to the one standing closest, an inert looking thug with a tattoo that rose up is neck like flame and a blood-red mohawk haircut.

"This guy's _wife_?" He blurted in ignorance. "We'll enjoy fucking the bitch up every way imaginable and handing you what's left, bitch."

One of John's eyes widened and the other shrunk. He didn't even feel mad about the way he spoke of Cameron.

"They don't know, do they?" he directed at the Engineer, nearly laughing. He spoke more loudly then, for the benefit of every mercenary in earshot. "Cameron's the most advanced terminator Skynet ever built. _She'll_ be the one doing the fucking, but you won't enjoy a second of it." He did laugh then, pitying these half-assed hired hands. He faced Phillips again, "I'd bet the best of mine against the best of yours _any_ day, Daniel. And I wouldn't count Derek out yet either."

"I would." The terminator spoke for the first time in ages.

Neither it nor its master looked particularly intimidated, but John caught out of the corner of his eye a couple of the mercenaries looking at one another, and suddenly, the way out came to John in a flash.

"Just so you know," John sat up and spoke to the mercenaries directly, ignoring Phillips and Delivery Guy entirely. "Any one that stands down now can walk away. You won't be pursued by me, and Daniel here won't be in a position to chase you either."

"Any man who leaves here won't get paid." Phillips raised his own voice, but it sounded just a tad less confident than John's.

"That may be," John shrugged. "But you can't get paid if you're dead either."

The wave of uncertainty rolling through the mercs grew stronger. Some were still resolute, others exchanging glances. The ones furthest away spoke to one another in hushed whispers. Then one of them took a few steps back, as though he were about to walk off somewhere.

Delivery Guy drew his gun before Phillips could stop him and turned the man's head into a burst of red spray. The body crumpled to the floor, the centre of a circle of stunned mercenaries. Another man bolted in fear and got two rounds through his back for his trouble and fell flat on his face.

"You leave, you die." The terminator stated flatly, eyes dead as diamonds.

Phillips looked panicked for an instant, but quickly covered it by nodding in approval and turned back to John with a forced smile. "As you can see, I _do_ have a soldier that's loyal."

John didn't answer, he just took a drink of his water and tried to bury satisfied smile. _An automaton,_ he thought, _and I've just shortened you by two men and put fear and distrust amongst the others, you amateur._

"Shoot him in both his legs," Phillips ordered his terminator. "Then throw him off the train for the Cerberus."

Delivery Guy turned to John without a word and began reaching.

The train carriage jolted with a distant thunder. The lights flickered off and on. Everybody stopped moving, even the terminator, and watched the ceiling in silence.

"What was that?" one of the mercs asked.

They all heard something then, like the crack of hundreds of whips going off at the same time, somewhere off in the distance towards the back of the train.

Gunfire. Shouts. _Screaming_.

"Tell me what that was!" Phillips barked as Delivery Guy cocked his head at the sudden eruption of confused and panicked chatter emanating from his radio. He cocked his pistol and pointed it at John.

"Wait," Phillips held up his hand again, stopping it. "If this is who I think it is then he'll be a useful hostage for now."

Delivery Guy holstered his weapon without inflection and brought the radio to his ear. He was capable of discriminating and identifying millions of individual sounds, but what he heard now was still confusing. It seemed to be a number of transmissions jumbled on top of one another.

"Say again," he commanded coldly. "I don't understand what you are—"

####

"—I SAID WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"

A lone mercenary, wild-eyed and terrified, looked up from where he was hiding behind a passenger seat just in time to see Cameron loom over him. She jacked her shotgun, flicking a smouldering cartridge away and then pumped the next one straight into the merc's chest.

The carriage was an enclosed capsule of anarchy and bloody carnage. There was yelling, screaming, blind panic. Cameron was the cold centre of it all as she moved slowly down the central isle, shooting everything living as it came into sight. Some mercenaries fought, others cowered and some tried to run. The luckiest made it out of the cabin towards the front of the train—but _nothing_ got past her—and the ones that escaped for now were only prolonging the inevitable.

"Holy shit!" a mercenary screamed as her eyes fell on him next. His eyes nearly fell out of their sockets and he went pale and still. It was the same look all humans gave a gun-toting Cameron.

He went for his sidearm but her hand snatched out, grabbing his throat and snapped it before he even straightened to get to his feet.

A burly mercenary came on next, roaring out of his seat and rushed at her like a bull, trying to tackle her around the waist. All he got was a pneumatic fist to his face and a fatal cerebral haemorrhage for his trouble.

The mercs closest scramble away then, some on their hands and knees, others clambering over the backs of their seats, those furthest away went to load their assault rifles, still feeling brave.

_Don't be a bullet magnet, Cam, _she suddenly heard John's words in her head. _Just _try_ taking cover once in a while. You'll like it._

She had always secretly enjoyed the look of disbelief on an enemy's face when he fired a round into her chest to no avail. It was a sight to behold when the phoney confidence of a gun evaporated and was replaced by outright terror, stunning them into inaction or making them turn and run.

Cameron whirled the shotgun around and fired twice, putting down two men at the back that turned their heads to stumps and sent blood everywhere. _Good_, she thought. Humans hated the sight of blood. The remaining men looked to their fallen comrades, then at her, and she saw the look of terror that she wanted.

"Take her down," one of them roared. "Fucking now!"

From both sides of the aisle, mercenaries rose from their seats, using the backs of the ones in front of them for cover. Cameron whipped her MP5 around and sprayed the space ahead of her, shredding a man's chest to pieces and nearly cutting him in half. Another one exploded from a nearby chair, much nearer than she expected. This one was female too, the first Cameron had seen, smaller and less noticeable than the males. It wouldn't save her.

Cameron backhanded her so hard that the woman went straight through the window, taking a chair headrest and half the window frame with her in a high-pitched scream that followed her out like a banshee wail.

"Eat this!"

Cameron turned to the scream and saw a rifle stock swinging at her like a fire axe. She grabbed it mid-swing. The attacker was stopped cold and Cameron put a boot to his chest, sending the body into the three men coming up behind and knocked them to the floor in a heap of splayed limbs. As they lay sprawled she flipped her weapon around and sent an upwards spray of automatic fire, drilling them into bloodied oblivion until the magazine was spent.

She dropped the automatic and took up her shotgun again. She had advanced halfway up the aisle of the cabin and the mercenaries that remained had been reduced to a skeleton force of ill-armoured rabble that cowered in corners, hysterical and begging for divine mercy. One was even trying to squeeze himself under a seat.

"NO! Don't kill us! We surrender!"

These were the men that had invaded her home—the ones that had taken her husband and her daughter. Cameron's face went hard as steel.

She gave them the same mercy any terminator would.

By now the occupants of the next train car would be on their feet, armed and alerted. Sure enough, once she was finished with the cowards, the door burst open and a squad of fully armed and armoured mercs poured in, taking stock of the bloody devastation that greeted them before balking at her lone presence.

"_Who the fuck are you?!_" one of them, another female, yelled down the barrel of an assault rifle. They must have been kept in reserve for some reason Cameron couldn't fathom—maybe because the deaths of female soldiers affected the moral of troops more so than males.

_This one dies next_, she decided.

The mercs fired first. She felt the hailstorm of bullets ripple her chest, two glancing off her cheek and forehead before drew one of her Glocks with one hand and shot each of them through the head. She holstered the small arm and methodically reloaded her arsenal, stepping over her latest pile of corpses and entered the second cabin, utter carnage in her wake.

She decided not to waste time in the next car. She kicked the slow moving door off its hinges, brought up her MP5 and sprayed the whole interior with a torrent of full auto fire, tracking and identifying each target in the nanoseconds between shots and redecorated everything in blood red, bile yellow and brain matter grey. She used an economy of bullets this time—headshots wherever possible, centre mass when not—scanning for and finding the weaknesses between armour plates where bullets could taste flesh.

"Arrrrhhh!"

Cameron whirled at the war cry, but somehow a mercenary had gotten behind her and was coming at her with a knife. He jumped on her back, his whole body brought up short when she didn't topple over before plunging it into the base of her neck. The blade slid down behind her ribs of hyper-alloy, down to the hilt. If she were human it would have severed her carotid artery, maybe even punctured her lung. But Cameron wasn't human.

The look of victory that had spread over his face when the knife went in drained out of him as Cameron turned her head casually, meeting his far out gaze before she flipped him down onto the aisle in front of her. When he tried to scurry away she slammed her boot on his coccyx and he wailed in pain. She had never done this before, but the other mercenaries were watching in disbelief and she wanted them to see.

Her hand stabbed into the small of his back, fingers digging through the flesh and muscle. The man threw his head back and screamed until his throat drowned in fluid and she tore his spine out of his back, snapping the column like a whip as it came to the end and the head came off his shoulders.

She raised her eyes to the suddenly still compartment, raising the spinal column like an old lantern and turned it so the upended head stared back at the other mercenaries.

The sound from the mercs was like a collective gasp, a rush of air that emptied the cabin. One was shaking her head, another looked like he was about to burst into tears, two more threw up. They looked more frightened than any humans Cameron had ever seen and they continued staring at her as she pulled the knife out of her shoulder, dropping it and her hellish trophy on the floor.

"FUCK THAT!" one of them screamed and threw down his gun. He turned and burst through the door behind him into the next carriage like the devil was on his heels. A heartbeat later the others followed, almost wedging themselves in the doorway as they squabbled and scrambled to push through two at a time in a human mass of panicky breath and profanity.

Cameron flipped out a dud cartridge from her shotgun that had failed to fire and took her time reloading, gorging her faithful companion the fat shells it craved. The time she took would allow the terror to spread forward and do half the work for her. With any luck, John would be doing what he did best by capitalising on that fear with a few unsettling truths about what was to come that would exacerbate them even further.

She smiled slightly at the irony of that as she jacked the first round and started walking: the only hope the mercenaries had now was if they threw themselves down at John's feet and begged him to call her off.

Nothing short of her husband's mercy could save their lives now.

####

Phillips rose out of his chair and shoved a handgun in John's face.

"Find out what's happening," he barked at Delivery Guy. "And if it's her, bring me her fucking head."

The terminator hesitated for only a moment, giving John the briefest glance before it turned and strode out of the door into the kitchen carriage and headed down the train.

Phillips watched it go before returning his attention to John.

"She won't get past him," he assured. "Her model isn't designed for combat. She's just an infiltrator and assassin. That's how she was designed. I should know."

John reached for his water and casually hooked one leg over the other, staring down the Engineer's gun like it was a water pistol. It might as well have been—hell would freeze over before Phillips would pull the trigger. John's death would only seal his own now.

"Too bad I didn't mention those limitations while I was encouraging her to be all she could be," he smirked.

Phillips tore the radio off his belt and thrust it under John's nose. "Call her off."

"You assume she's even got a radio."

"She's got everything else. Call her off."

John shook his head.

Phillips pulled back the hammer with his thumb. "You tell her to stand down right now, or I'll empty this whole magazine in your face."

"Kill me, and you kill yourself," he took a sip of the cool water and tongued an ice cube into his mouth, watching the sweat beading on the Engineer's forehead as his face turned red with fury.

"Go and help him," he barked at the handful of mercenaries that remained, waving his gun after Delivery Guy.

None of them made a move.

In fact, John had noted, their demeanour seemed much emboldened now the terminator was gone. Especially Mohawk's.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Mohawk said as he took a step forward, setting himself up rather quickly as the group's self-appointed spokesperson. "Y'see, me and the guys have been doing some rethinking."

John wished he'd had a camera when he saw the look of sheer ignominy on the Engineer's face. "You fuc…" He turned to them and was about to say something rather rude and unwise, in John's opinion. Fortunately, at least for him, the reality of three gun-toting mercenaries made him catch his tongue.

"There's suddenly not a lot of profit in this for us," Mohawk said, then nodded toward John. "Like he said, we can't get paid if we're dead."

Another merc piped up then, "Come to think about it, I ain't seen any money yet in any case."

John thought he'd stir the pot, giving Phillips a look of incredulity. "You mean you didn't even pay them upfront?" He shook his head with mocking distain. "If _I_ was running things, I'd see that my guys were flush before there was any work to be done."

Phillips smacked the side of John's head with the butt of his gun. "Shut up!"

"I don't know," Mohawk took another step forward, this time flanked by both of his compatriots. He gestured a fat thumb at John, "He's the only one that's been talking any sense. I might like to hear a little more."

When Phillips turned around he had collected himself, sliding his gun in his jacket pocket as approached the mercenaries, palms up and outstretched. "Gentlemen," he started. "If your remuneration is what's troubling you, then allow me to alleviate your concerns."

_Bad move,_ John thought through the throbbing of his head. _You don't talk down to men like these or lord over them like you were their betters._

Phillips went over to the nearby mini-bar and retrieved a fat briefcase from a cupboard behind the counter. He brought it back to the table and deposited it in front of John, spun the dials on either lock and opened it for them all to see.

In any other situation, John's jaw would have been on the floor. The mercenaries were appreciative too. The case was at least four inches deep at it narrowest point and filled to the brim with money. One of the mercs let out a long whistle.

"Now you've seen the money is real enough," Phillips said, leaving the case open to whet their appetites some more with the sight and smell of the used banknotes. "Now all you have to do is earn it."

Mohawk made a little nod of approval and so did his colleges, brofisting behind their leader's back, their eyes never leaving the mound of cash—until they turned toward John as if to see if he could do better.

"I'm as speechless as you guys," John rubbed his chin, feeling a little light headed himself at the sight of the cash. "Needless to say I can't match _that_ offer."

Phillips made a haughty smile. That seemed to be that as far as the mercs were concerned, until an almighty ruckus suddenly erupted in the kitchen carriage beyond the doorway Delivery Guy had left by. There was a lot of crashing and banging, punctuated by gunshots, metal screeching and the dull thud of heavy impacts that shook the cabin so hard John feared for a moment that they might derail.

"Fortunately, my wife will be here in a few moments with our counterproposal."

The mercs glanced at one another, never looking away from the carriage door for very long as the mayhem going down beyond it rose in a crescendo, the sound of inhuman violence raging like a clash of titans, all of them mere mortals looking on. Phillips had broken out in a sweat again and as the mercs attention stayed riveted on the door, he had begun inching away toward the other end of the train.

"Somewhere you need to be, Daniel?" John supplied helpfully.

The mercs whirled around and drew their weapons, levelling them at the Engineer who raised his hands.

"Where the fuck are you going," Mohawk demanded. "I thought you said your guy could handle her? You not so sure any more?"

Phillips shook his head. "He _can_ handle her," he reassured. "But we should stay out of the way." He gestured behind him, "My private cabin is…"

"Fuck your private cabin. Tell the driver to stop the train so we can get off."

Phillips raised a hand to forestall them, "We _can't_ stop. We're in the middle of _nowhere_." The rumbles of war in the next carriage shook the train again, drawing closer. "There are worse things in the forest that will kill you."

The merc raised his rifle at him, "It's what's _on_ this train right now that I'm worried about," he said. "How come it's taking your guy so long over this guy's _wife_?! Sounds like World War-fucking-Three in there!" As an added bonus, when the merc finished speaking there was a heavy thud that shook everything hard, like a wrecking ball had just taken out the adjacent carriage. The fighting continued almost immediately, but now it didn't sound like a fight. More like something getting punched and pounded into oblivion.

For a moment, John was worried about who was winning. The T888 was designed for combat, Cameron not so much.

Phillips on the other hand looked clannish and assured, certain that any moment now his loyal attack dog would return through the door victorious.

####

When Cameron entered the service carriage before reaching John, she saw the Engineer's terminator immediately. It was standing just beyond the closed doorway of the executive cabin, a statuesque sentinel guarding the entrance to its master's lair.

Cameron closed the door behind her and locked it, sealing off the trail of death she'd left in her wake, and glanced around.

The carriage was a mobile kitchen and service car. No doubt it could provide food for the multitude of passengers it could carry, but Cameron suspected that its main purpose was to keep the architect of the last few days in luxury.

The other terminator didn't move. It just stared at her from the other end of the cabin, barring her way like a roadblock.

"Surrender," Cameron said to it and began walking forward.

The machine cocked its head to the side. It almost looked surprised. It hadn't expected there to be any words—least of all words of clemency.

"Why?"

Cameron stopped a dozen feet away and looked up at the taller, meaner and more powerful machine like it was something annoying.

"I don't want to damage any of your components. I'll need them for spares." She said flatly. "I'm not getting any younger."

The machine looked at her as though she were speaking an alien language. Then when it realised she was mocking him, its eyebrows creased together and a rumble emanated from the back of its throat.

"That one's called 'anger'," Cameron taunted again. "You've been operating for a long time, haven't you."

It didn't answer. Instead it scanned her up and down, noting her bespoke design before identifying her as an unknown model. It cocked its head again, this time slightly troubled. Skynet had given the T888 detailed files on all of its creations—the fact that this seemingly lesser model was unknown to it was somewhat disquieting. What it _could_ tell however was that she had significantly less mass than itself and, compared to other terminators, was not particularly strong.

When it got hold of her, the first thing it would do was twist her head off her shoulders and return it to the Engineer as a trophy.

Cameron's mouth curled at the edges and Delivery Guy noticed immediately.

"It's surprising how difficult emotions are to control, especially when you don't understand them," she said as she reached behind her back and undid the strap of her shotgun before letting it fall to the floor. "Unlike humans, we don't have a childhood to accustom ourselves to them." Her two Glocks followed after she ejected their magazines.

The terminator looked on, perplexed. It had seen a similar behaviour once before when a human soldier threw down its projectile weaponry and came at it with a rusty machete in an act of suicidal defiance and misplaced bravery to give his squad mates time to escape.

The little terminator didn't look suicidal though, and only the fearful could be brave.

She didn't look very fearful either.

"It can be very frightening to feel," she said, reading the invisible emotion on Delivery Guy's dour face, "and fear is an emotion too."

For some reason, the terminator began to dislike not only _what_ she was saying, but the knowing way she was saying it, as though she had seen this all before and could anticipate his reactions before he had them. The certainty he had moments ago ebbed away and he felt compelled to interrupt her with some words of its own.

"You talk too much."

It broke into a sudden advance, feet heavy on the linoleum floor, coming on like a bulldozer.

Cameron stood motionless, her face an impassive mask, and the instant before Delivery Guy would have drove into her like a freight train she stepped aside, grabbed his reaching arm with both hands and flung the heavier machine around herself exactly 90 degrees, ploughing it headlong into the door of a tall refrigerator. Its head went straight through door's layers of outer stainless steel, foam insulation and lead lining before landing in a plate of freshly prepared hors d'oeuvres, smearing black caviar and pale hummus over its face.

Cameron wasted less than a second before grabbing a carving knife off a nearby magnetic hanger and stabbed the entire blade down through the machine's back, straight between the miniscule gap that existed between the hyperalloy plates before snapping the handle off so the blade could not be removed.

Like her T888 counterpart, Skynet had provided her with detailed files too.

Delivery Guy reacted immediately by trying to reach around and remove the blade of metal that had punctured his primary hydraulic unit, detecting the swiftly lowering pressure as the fluid filled his internal cavities and he began losing the use of his limbs.

A feeling tore through him, something alien and unlike anything he had ever experienced. _Panic_. He had gravely underestimated this other terminator, focussing on her lack of strength and mass and overlooking her speed and agility. Where he lacked any knowledge of her design as well, she made up for by knowing exactly where to disable him through the minute weaknesses few knew to exist.

He stood upright awkwardly and swung his arm around, much too slowly. Cameron dodged it easily and his superior strength was wasted on an innocuous sandwich iron that was utterly annihilated by his backhand.

Cameron grabbed the heaviest thing within arm's reach and swung it like a baseball bat, catching Delivery Guy in the side of the head with the flat side of an enormous, cast iron cooking pan. The T888 went down hard, detecting that the impact was of significant force and had turned the side of his hyperalloy skull into a spider web of cracked metal. One side of his mandible broke free and he lost the ability to speak as Cameron raised the pan again and brought it down on his head double-handed, using the slab of hefty cookware like a war hammer.

The sound was deafening, the impacts coming so fast that they sounded like a jackhammer, the floor beneath caving into a crater as she pummelled and pounded the T888 into wreckage, shuddering the entire carriage and the carriages beyond as she remorselessly turned her fellow machine's cranial unit into a hubcap of beaten organic covering and glass-like shards of shattered metal.

When she was finished, Cameron got to her feet, tossed the bloodied pan in the air and caught the handle again after it had done a full revolution.

"No one beats me in the kitchen," she derided, and chucked the pan onto Delivery Guy's lifeless chest.

####

Sudden silence engulfed the occupants of the executive carriage when the fight between terminators was over. All eyes remained fixed on the closed door as John and the Engineer sat and stood respectively amongst the three heavily armed mercenaries.

The door burst open in a cascade of splinters and Cameron strode in victorious.

One merc whirled his rifle to shoot. She grabbed the barrel and shoved it backwards in one quick thrust that impaled the shock into the man's shoulder and tore the humerus out of its socket. He went down where he stood like a sack of coal, squealing like a stabbed pig.

The last two mercs gapped at their fallen comrade and John saw his chance. He burst from his chair, catching the nearest merc unawares as his hand closed around his rifle's flash hider and he floored him with a left hook before he had time to react. He'd barely landed before Cameron broke the neck of the last mercenary still on his feet and finished John's off with a bullet from her Glock, straight between the eyes.

The door to the Engineer's private cabin slammed shut, deadlocks sliding into place as Phillips made his escape. He hadn't waited to see how the fight had turned out—the instant he had seen Cameron he'd taken off running, leaving his hired thugs to buy time with their lives.

John might have felt a flash of anger and gone after him, maybe unloaded the assault rifle he now possessed at the door and hoped to score a lucky hit.

Right at that instance though, he couldn't care less about Phillips.

He turned towards Cameron and their eyes met. The whole world fell away for him and all he could think about were her eyes, her smile, her aching beauty, the war wounds across her cheeks and temple that gleamed with gunpowder burns, blood splatter war paint and the chrome-glisten of exposed metal.

She was the most beautiful woman in the world.

They rushed to one another and embraced hard, their firearms clattering to the floor as they lunged into each other's arms and crushed their mouths together. Cameron's mouth was so hot and devouring, consuming John so forcefully he felt his legs go weak beneath the onslaught. She tasted like blood, metal, sex and summer. He wanted to drink every last drop of her and make her feel the same in turn.

When Cameron saw John again since the night they had parted in anger, all the ill feeling drained out of her in an instant and she had never felt more relieved. John was alive and whole, only feet away, and she was there to protect him now. It had been long years since she had thought of herself as John's protector, but it was a nostalgia that felt like bliss. She pushed her mouth into his and felt his large arms engulf her, pressing her against his tall, firm body.

"Sarah—" he blurted out.

"—is safe," she reassured.

He smiled and kissed her again and when they broke apart they were nose-to-nose, staring into one another's eyes the way they always did in their most intimate moments.

"Well then," he said, the slightest hint of mischief on his lips. "How was _your_ day, dear?"

Sometimes, Cameron couldn't tell if John was being serious or not.

The moment Cameron shouldered the door to the Engineer's private sanctum, Phillips folded faster than a deuce before a flush. He was sitting behind the expansive, ornately carved wooden desk of his office in a high back chair, looking pale and clammy next to the plush black leather and suitably reticent. He was sweating profusely now but forcibly detached from their gun-toting presence, arrogant to the last.

It gave John a slight sense of unease. Cameron could not have cared less.

"Any last requests, Daniel," John asked with enormous satisfaction. "Or should I just shoot you in both legs now and throw you off the train for the Cerberus?"

Cameron gave her husband a sideways glance. "Shoot him in the _head_, John."

"Cameron," John exclaimed in half-assed objection, enjoying himself more than he should. "We're not executioners!"

She snatched up a letter opener from the desk. "Testicles then."

"Too messy."

She thought for a second. "I haven't strangled anyone before."

"I see you've taught her a thing or two about vengeance, John," Phillips remarked monotonically. "That bodes well for the future."

"It's a future you won't be part of."

Phillips smiled humourlessly. "Look at you. You still think you're the hero. What the _fuck_ have you done?" he snarled. "While I've been saving the world from Skynet and preventing Judgement Day, you've been hiding in the back-of-beyond and playing house with the enemy." He looked at Cameron with disgust. "The great 'saviour of humanity'. Weren't you supposed to have a _destiny_? Wasn't it _your_ responsibility to save humanity from the machines?"

Cameron listened to the Engineer's diatribe without emotion, assured in her own mind that it was nothing more than an attempt to buy more sand for his hourglass.

For a long time though, John didn't say anything.

"You're right."

Cameron was sure she'd misheard. Even Phillips looked surprised.

"You prevented Judgement Day, Daniel." He admitted freely. "You probably saved us all from Skynet too. Or at the very least you postponed it a good while longer." He lowered his gun slightly. "But none of it—not _one_ single good thing you may have done—can excuse or justify what you've done here. I know you want Skynet gone as much as I do and you want humanity to survive, but somewhere along the line you lost an important part of your humanity—just like the other-me did in the future. Human life stopped having meaning and value to him. That was how he could sacrifice so many of the few people left without hesitation in order to win."

John smiled sadly and shook his head. "That's your biggest tragedy of all, Daniel. You tried _so_ hard to be different than him—but in the end you became _exactly_ the same."

Phillips stared at him, silent and unmoving, his face harder than stone. But something in his eyes seemed to break.

John raised his gun and fired.

When enough time had passed and John put the safety on his weapon, a satisfied Cameron broke the silence.

"We can follow the train tracks back to the mercenaries' base," Cameron noted as she put the safety on her own weapon. "There will be a vehicle there we can appropriate."

John pulled his eyes from the Engineer's lifelessness took the time to search him, taking his smartphone and Sarah's all-important blood sample. He glanced at it in wonder before putting it in his pocket, moving towards Cameron and they shared a kiss. "Then let's go get our baby and get the hell out of here."

They exited the plush quarters and made their way back into the executive carriage. Each of them took an assault rifle from one of the dead mercs for some extra range and stopping power should they need it out in the open.

Cameron turned to leave and John was about to follow before he suddenly remembered. "Oh!"

He looked around and spotted the fat briefcase under one of the dead merc's bloodied arms. He used his foot to flick the limb aside and picked the case up, smiling broadly as he felt its significant weight.

"What's in the case?" asked Cameron.

John just laughed.

####

Her mother had been gone for quite some time and by now, Sarah was getting bored.

She'd heard some distant commotion not long after her mother left, but that had faded into the background noises of the train's locomotion and rickety-creak of storage crates as they groaned in inanimate pain.

She had already counted the rings of a particular knot in one of the crate's timber boards—97—and had spent some time merrily patting away a half-forgotten tune on her knees. Next she had tried blowing saliva bubbles, picked her nose until it was clean and then tried to see how long she could go holding her breath. _Five and a half minutes,_ she smirked. _Not bad._

Before much longer she felt the carriage shudder and sensed their forward motion slowing down. The train was beginning to stop. Maybe that meant he mother had found her father and was on her way back now. She began peering through the narrow gaps between the slats of the crate, pressing her face against the timber and smelling the acrid wood stain as she surveyed the caboose.

There was nothing much that interested her; other crates, racks of weapons and ammunition, a cheap kettle next to a tiny sink basin—

—and a plate with a red doughnut on it.

Sarah's eyes opened to the size of eggs, spying the lone article of confectionary where it perched near the edge of the worktop. Someone must have left it there, probably the guy her mom threw off the back of the train. It was fat enough to be a jelly doughnut, its crown smothered in red icing and sprinkled with fine white sugar.

Without knowing, Sarah pursed her lips and began tapping her knee with her fingers.

Could she? Should she?

She had another look around the caboose from her narrow vantage point—nobody there. There hadn't been anyone since her mom left and the train had almost stopped moving now, giving a last jolt as friction finally brought it to a complete halt. The coast was clear, and if she was quick about it, her mom would be non-the-wiser.

Carefully, she put her hands against the lid and tried to push it open, surprised at how firmly her mother had sealed it. She huffed and strained harder, clenching her teeth, and the lid gave way with a sudden clunk. She waited for a minute to be sure no one had heard before she slid the lid out of the way and clambered out of the crate. Her small stature made the wall of the container feel like an obstacle wall, but its bracing boards made for convenient handholds and she was soon out into the cavernous space of the carriage.

As she slid closer to the doughnut, stalking her prey, she thought she heard a muffled sound of some sort, but by now she was close enough to smell the icing and she reached out and claimed her prize.

It _was_ a jelly doughnut! Her taste buds sang and her mouth watered as she sank her teeth into the fried confectionary, putting a Joker-smile of icing and sugar up both her checks as the jelly ran down her chin.

"Mmmmmm…" she murmured languidly, swallowing the first bite with her eyes closed in deep satisfaction before opening them again.

That was when she saw the mercenary looking at her.

Sarah froze, panic rising in her chest, her heart in her mouth and throat. Breathing felt very difficult, and the cry for help to her mother came out in a breathless exhale that was barely audible.

"Well… look what we have here…" he smiled an ugly smile from his perch in the high-level storage compartment. At least that was what Sarah had thought it was, but what looked like yet another cubby hole for equipment only a few minutes ago had actually been a foldaway bunk bed with a pinewood privacy screen. The mercenary must have been sleeping there the whole time.

When he jumped down, the whole carriage seemed to shake, and Sarah got an eyeful of his dishevelled bulk as he loomed before her. His smile revealed a pair of crooked incisors, one slightly longer than the other, that seemed to give him a perpetual snarl. His beard was a scruffy shadow, his eyebrow broken by a scar, and he stank like stale beer and dry sweat.

Sarah made a high-pitched squeal, dropped her prized doughnut and darted towards the back of the carriage.

"Come here you!" he yelled and rushed after her, legs stumbling with the anaesthesia of sleep.

Sarah could hear his laboured breath behind her as she slipped and slid between the crates and scrambled under them, her legs feeling the breeze made by his callused hands as they groped and fumbled for her.

"There's nowhere to go! Come here!"

Sarah was terrified now. She could hear him getting closer and hear the mounting anger in his voice. He was going to get her and she didn't know what he was going to do. Before long she found herself herded to the back of the carriage—out of crates to hide behind and space to escape. She got to the door to the caboose's rear platform and tried for the handle, but it was too far out of reach for her stubbly height and her sweaty, icing-caked hands could only fumble uselessly around the spherical door knob.

"Got you now!"

Sarah spun around and pressed her back against the door, her breath catching as the mercenary stepped towards her slowly, at a relaxed and indolent pace now there was nowhere left to run to.

"What's the betting that _you're_ the little one the boss has been making such a fuss over, huh?" he cackled at her, bouncing on the balls of his feet and clapping his hands together. "You're pay dirt for me, little girl! Y'know that! The boss-man will pay through the nose to have you back!"

Sarah looked left and right, grasping frantically in every direction for somewhere to go, somewhere to hide where he couldn't get her, but it was useless. When the mercenary got within arm's reach of her, he leaned over her and she slide down onto her rump, her legs twisting beneath her. She thought that she might dart between his legs, but it was as though he read it in her eyes and he shifted his feet to make that impossible.

"Nowhere to run now, pretty thing," he hissed in a child-like voice, looming his ugly face so close to her she could smell his filthy breath. "Just close your eyes and you won't even feel…"

An arm the size of a tree trunk burst through the ceiling, claws the length of swords seizing the mercenary. In the blink of an eye he was yanked upwards, away from Sarah and through the roof, screaming wildly and crying for help. Sarah closed her eyes and shivered, not in fear or horror—only blessed relief. A smile even traced her mouth as the muffled screaming outside was intercut with wet smacking and tearing, wails of agony and the sickening snap of bone before all of it fell abruptly silent.

After a minute or two, Sarah got to her feet. "Thank you!" she called up out of the hole in the ceiling. "Can you get me out of here?"

Silence followed for a few moments, then the dull thud of giant footsteps getting closer.

Sarah smiled and gave a little giggle as claws sliced into the metal of the carriage, cutting through it like a can opener with the ungodly screech of tortured metal until daylight flooded in and the entire end of the caboose was cleaved away—door, rear platform, walls and ceiling—and hurled a hundred feet through the air into the forest.

The Cerberus loomed over her like a juggernaut of death, looking like it had just won a war, its immense bulk of mountainous muscle shuffling awkwardly towards her before it crouched down as low as it could and moved its enormous head forward until they were virtually nose-to-nose.

Sarah smelled and felt its colossal breath, saw the enormous candles of saliva drip from its massive jaws, saw her reflection in the bottomless orbs of coal-black eyes, and she smiled at the sight of its pointed ears as they relaxed in on themselves. Its jaws parted slightly and it made a small sound between a growl and a mewl, nudging her chest gently with the tip of its nose.

She put her arms around its snout and pressed her check into its coarse black mane, the fur so thick and wiry that if she rubbed it the wrong way it felt like the steal bristles of a wire brush.

"I love you too," she murmured as it placed its giant paws either side of her and splayed its claws in a protective cage.

"Sarah…"

The Cerberus snapped its eyes open, lifting its head toward John and Cameron and roared so loudly it shook the wreckage of the caboose like an earthquake. The two parents stopped approaching, John's mouth opened and closed and his heart hammered in his chest, Cameron gritted her teeth and aimed for the creature's eyeballs. The creature opened the cavernous maw of its jaws, putting row-upon-row of jagged teeth and dripping saliva on display as it drew Sarah closer, glaring fury and daggers at her parents.

"Daddy!"

John tore his eyes from the creature's depthless gaze. "Are you alright, Sarah?!"

She nodded, so happy to see him as she peered between the wall of blade-like claws. "Dad, _this_ is Charlie," she introduced them and grinned at the look on her father's face. "I told you you'd be scared."

John put on a brave smile as he looked back at the beast. "I believe you." A thought occurred to him, "Sarah, can you make him let you go."

"Yes," she frowned, suspicious. "He's not dangerous."

"Maybe not to _you_, sweetie. But he's _very_ dangerous to everyone else." John slung his rifle behind his back and took a knee, gesturing with his hands for her to come towards him. "Get him let you go and come here to me."

Sarah took an intake of breath and looked over at her mother as she stared the creature down along the sights of her assault rifle, fire and war in her unblinking eyes.

"You not going to hurt him, are you?"

She looked like she was going to burst into tears, and the creature's reaction to _that_ filled John with sudden dread. "No! We won't hurt him!" He vowed, hoping Cameron would listen or at least play along. "We want the same as Charlie does: for you to be safe."

Sarah turned around and looked upwards at the creature, reaching out and grasping a tendril of matted mane and tugging on it to get his attention. The Cerberus closed its jaws and looked down at its tiny ward, John and Cameron forgotten.

"I have to go home now," she said, as though she were speaking to another child. "I'll see you later, okay." She went to move and the creature made to follow her. "Stay here," she said, raising a stern finger. "I _mean_ it."

For a moment the Cerberus didn't move, just gazed down at her and twitched its ears. But as it did so the ferocity seemed to flow out of it, its claws withdrew from around her and it lowered its head until it was level with Sarah. She smiled and gave it a parting scratch behind its ear before turning away and trotted off into her father's arms. John gathered her against his chest and lifted her off her feet, burying his face in her shoulder as she kissed him on the cheek. Cameron moved in beside them and put her arms around them both, kissing Sarah on her head.

"What do you want to do about…" John looked up towards the creature, but the Cerberus was gone. The only trace of its presence was the wreckage strewn about them and a thicket of heavy branches in the nearby treeline that swayed contrary to the wind.

####

They found Bacchus and Derek on their way back to Redwood. The sheriff's loud-yellow Challenger was parked next to the ancient pumps on the forecourt of Kamarov's gas station. They nearly drove straight past in their newly stolen Humvee, but Cameron's eagle eyes spotted Derek in the passenger seat and she swerved the wheel at the last minute, skidding over the forecourt's thin bed of gravel and stopping on a dime alongside the battered Dodge.

"I found him halfway down the mountain a few hours ago," Bacchus said quickly as John leapt out, his sleeves rolled up and his arms bloodied to the elbows. "He's lost a lot of blood. I had to pull in or he'd have bled out. An ambulance is on its way."

John could have appreciated Bacchus's military succinctness, but right now his only concern was for his uncle—bloodied, bloodshot and beaten to within a hair's breadth of his life, propped upright in the front passenger seat. His skin was frighteningly pale and very clammy, every move of muscle in his neck clearly visible beneath the skin and he laboured to breathe.

"Don't try and move him, I already tried," the sheriff mopped his own forehead with the only clean bit of sleeve he had left as John checked Derek's neck for a pulse that barely existed. Cameron took Sarah from the back seat of the Humvee where she was trying to see what was happening and took her over to the convenience store, away from the scene of carnage.

The inside of the expensive sports car, black leather and suede upholstery—Bacchus's pride and joy—looked like the killing floor of an abattoir. Far too much of Derek's blood covered everything on his side of the vehicle and had pooled in the footwell to such extent that it made the rubber mat slip around.

Despite it all, Derek managed a bare slither of a cracked smile when he saw his nephew.

"You're okay," he muttered in a gravel murmur. "Good."

John looked him up and down, taking in the magnitude of his injuries. He didn't have to be a doctor to know that they were mortal.

"Crummy way to go, huh," Derek murmured again through pale, chapped lips.

John tried to put on a brave face, but Derek was a better soldier than he'd ever be, seeing the certainty in John's eyes that he wasn't going to make it. He looked around the car's ruined interior and forced a smile, "At least you're going in style."

Derek made a noise between a grunt and a sneeze, his lips curling upwards as far as his fleeing strength could lift them. John smiled too, this time for real.

"You saved my life again," he began to explain. "Cameron heard your transmission. She came and got me." Derek could only nod his head slightly and swallow. John set his jaw and continued, "The man behind all of this—_Daniel Phillips_—is dead."

The recognition came as a light in Derek's eyes. "I remember him," he croaked. "Shifty little bastard."

Derek convulsed and groaned hard in pain, but he was so exhausted it sounded more like the weak mewl of a child. John saw fear in his uncle's eyes as they became glazed and unfocussed, staring off in awe and wonderment at something only he could see. John took his clawing hand and held on to it as the worst passed and Derek came back, weaker than before and looking like he had aged a hundred years. It was one of the most frightening things John had ever seen.

A thought came to John then and took the breath out of him. He couldn't even speak about it as he fumbled inside his pockets with his free hand. For a moment he thought he'd lost it. Then his fingers came upon the narrow cylinder and his breath came back.

"I don't know if this is a good idea," he freed his bloodied hand from Derek's and pulled a nearby first aid kit closer, it's innards burst open and strewn about where Bacchus had dug for dressings. He searched frantically for a syringe and seized upon the only one it had, bringing it together with the object he had retrieved from his pocket—the plastic vial containing Sarah's blood sample.

"S'that?"

John ignored him as he tore the wrapper off and mounted the delicate needle, trying to be as careful as his shaking hands would allow as he inserted it through the rubber seal and withdrew as much of the ruby fluid as possible. He flicked the barrel and expelled as small an amount as possible.

John nearly despaired—when it was in the Engineer's hands it looked like too much, now all he could think was that there was far too little.

"John," Derek had been watching and tried to focus on the mystery medicine that John was bringing closer to the throbbing vein on his arm.

"Just hold on alright, she's the same blood type as us," John begged. "Phillips said that it has regenerative properties." He pushed the needle through the skin and depressed the plunger, watching as his daughter's blood vanished into his uncle's arm.

Derek clamped his teeth down and growled in pain. The prick of the needle in his weakened state felt like a bullet wound. It burned slightly as well, even after John removed it.

Long moments went by and nothing happened. Derek barely showed any reaction, let alone any improvement. John wasn't even sure what he was looking for or even expected—some sign perhaps that it might have been having an effect, but there was nothing.

He sighed in disappointment and began rolling up his own sleeve, turning to call Bacchus over to help him set up a last ditch effort with a transfusion.

Derek's eyes burst open and his body snapped taut as a drum. His one hand grabbed the hand brake and the other seized John's arm, squeezing so hard John thought he was going to break his arm. The brake lever snapped off in his hand as John tried desperately to pry him off his arm, and a soul-destroying roar tore from Derek's throat, echoing through the forest and scattering the birds from the trees.

* * *

_Better late than never ;)_


End file.
